Prices to pay
by iris0011
Summary: 'I don't want any power' he screamed. 'I just want Orihime'   full summary inside
1. Chapter 1

_I don't want any power!' He screamed. 'I just want Orihime!'_

**Prices to pay**

Bleach Fan Fiction

**Setting:** far future

**Plot:** Orihime and Ichigo are married and expecting there first baby. There life is happy, though not peaceful. Soon there bound will be put to an other test, and they have to shatter fate again with his sword and her will...

**Warning:** If you have read my prequels to this you already know that English is not my native! (Reading the first two stories is not necessary, for all stories make seance on there own too.)

I think this will be the darkest part of the trilogy, but don't worry, the ending is good...

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Bleach. I only own a huge crush on it...

Prologue

/quote from canon Bleach/

**"_... If fate is a millstone...__"_**

_He found himself in the rain again. A bad kind of anticipation was squashing his heart. He watched from afar as the pair approached the riverside: the tall slim figure of a long soft brown haired woman, and a little boy with spiky orange locks, holding hands under the umbrella. _

_He was rooted to his spot. He knew well, that there was nothing he could do except watch the inevitable conclusion unfold before his eyes once more... _

"_**...then we are the grist. There is nothing we can do." **_

_Then the woman looked up. Gentle hazel eyes...not the ones he expected...and the features... His heart beat wildly in his chest. _

_'No!' he cried out, unheard by anyone but him. He tried desperately to move, to ran to them, but his legs seamed to be made out of lead... the harder he tried the less he could proceed... _

"_**...So I wish for strength."**_

_A figure a__ppeared on the banks of the river. __His bat like wings shone in the pail moonlight. He lifted his hand, and a green cero started to form on his fingertip. _

_'No!' Ichigo shouted again, trying to run all the time. 'Orihime!'_

_The green light of the cero blocked everything from his sight. When he could see again, she was on the ground, her body broken, and covered in blood. She got the full blast, her body shielding the little boy. _

"_**If I cannot protect them from the wheel..."**_

_He finally reached them. He searched for his sword, but it was missing from his back. So he faced the Espada empty handed. _

_'Ulquiorra... Now I know this is a dream! I've already destroyed you! You can't be here! It's just a dream!'_

_'That my be so...' Green eyes bore into his while he answered in his monotone, emotionless voice. 'But even if it's just a dream, the despair is real!'_

_Ichigo was breathing heavily. He closed his eyes firmly, willing his mind to be relished from this torture. But it didn't work. _

_'Let me show you true despair now...' Ulquiorra said. He lifted his hand again, but not for cero, it was an inviting gesture. And Ichigo saw the little boy walk forward, and take that hand. His orange colored head snapped up, and reviled a pair of pitch black eye..._

_And Ichigo screamed. Screamed, like he never screamed before._

"**_... then give me a strong blade, and enough strength... to shatter fate."_**

Chapter 1

Orihime was busy in the kitchen, making dinner. She stirred the contains of the pot absentmindedly, as she felt a sharp poke on her roundish belly. She smiled, and caressed the same spot tenderly with her free hand.

'Ah... you miss your father too!' she cooed. 'Don't worry... he'll be back in no time! You'll see... '

Ichigo had rushed out half an hour ago, when his substitute badge signaled... For just a moment Orihime reached out through space to find his sweet spiritual pressure, and sighed relieved when she found it. She knew it was silly, but she couldn't help being worried every single time he went out on soul reaper duty. And now he won't even let her come... she knew it was reasonable, but it made her worry to be far from him.

But now she needed to concentrate on her work, if she didn't want to end up adding some random ingredients into the sauce again... She smiled, as she remembered, that for there first mouth living together Ichigo had never let her near the kitchen. But afterwords he learned to trust her, and surprisingly enough his favorite dishes now were some of her own designs, which he wouldn't have thought of eating before... Of course she always held herself back from making "totally weird stuff" for him, as Tatsuki always referred to it. Her black haired friend helped her much with that in the beginning.

She was lost in her happy memories, when suddenly she heard a shout from outside. She went to the door, and heard it again, this time distinguishing the voice of Uryu Ishida.

'Orihime! Open up! Quick!'

She went to the door with a sinking feeling, and struggled with the key. She looked outside. Her heart skipped a beat. Uryu and Chad stood in the doorway, holding the unconscious Ichigo who was covered in blood all over...

His two friends carried him inside, and laid him on the crouch. Orihime followed them with dizzy head, and she felt that tears were already running down her face.

'Santen Kisshun! I reject!'

The yellow light of her shield surrounded Ichigo's body.

'What happened, Ishida-kun?' she asked the Quincy quietly after a few minutes silence.

'We have lost a soul...'

'What?'

'Yes... There were many hollows, and it was in the middle of this stupid concert... crowded with teens... we just couldn't protect all of them at once...and the soul of a girl was taken by one of them. Of course he was so mad...' Uryu glanced down at the substitute soul reaper's form under the yellow shield. 'We were all there, but I bet he thought again that it was his fault alone... He rushed in without thinking, blinded by his rage... got ambushed from behind... the stupid idiot...'

Chad continued the story:

'He was pretty injured, but made it worse by wanting to continue the fight, so I figured it's best if I just punch him out...' The big giant of a man was looking at Orihime sheepishly, as though waiting for her forgiveness. She smiled at him briefly.

'Thank you... Sado-kun!'

'Hey!... I've heard that!' Complained Ichigo weakly from under the shield, as he opened his eyes. He sat up slowly looking Orihime in the eyes with his familiar scowl. She only smiled with relief.

'How are you?'

'Fine! Now just remove this shield already before you'll overexert yourself!'

Her face suddenly clouded over. She pursed her lips in disapproval, looking very much like a small child sulking.

'Not until you're completely healed!'

'It won't hurt me to have a scar or two from this one... I'd deserve it! It's completely my fault...'

Luckily Orihime's powers were not disturbed by her current predicament, but she got tired after using them more quickly. They were not sure why that was. But it made sense, after all carrying a baby was a grate job in itself...

Finally Orihime removed the shield. They embraced, and shared a brief kiss. Ichigo held her face in his hands and gently wiped the remains of her tears away.

'I'm so sorry... I made you worry...'

Uryu cleared his throat.

'Well, I think we should be going now, Chad.'

They said goodby and the two left.

Later that evening, when they already ate dinner and Orihime was coming out of the bathroom wearing her pajamas she found Ichigo standing by the window, looking out and apparently lost in his thoughts.

'Ichigo?'

As she came closer she saw that his expression was pained and his eyes narrowed...

'She was only a child... couldn't be more than 11...her poor family... '

'I'm so sorry...' said Orihime quietly.

This was the one thing even her unique powers could not undo. The limit of her rejecting ability. Bringing back a soul once it was taken was impossible...

'No matter how strong I get... It's just not enough...' Ichigo's fists balled up and his nails dug into his skin.

Orihime wanted to comfort him, but she knew nothing she could say would make him feel better. She could tell him like Ishida-kun, that it was not his fault, that bad things sometimes happen, no matter how strong you are, but he wouldn't listen anyway. So she did the only thing she could think of... she reached up on tiptoes and kissed lightly on his tightened jaw... on his scowling mouth...

That night Orihime had "the dream" again. This dream kept returning to her from time to time. Not very frequently, but when it came, it was always so solid and colorful, that it almost seamed real. She usually had vivid and crazy dreams, but this one was different.

The weirdest thing about this dream was, that nothing ever happened in it. She was just in this strange place, with huge buildings like skyscrapers, but everything was turned on it's side, like somebody flipped it 90 degrees... even the clouds moved vertically on the blue sky. She didn't understand it at all.

This world was not exactly frightening, but it didn't feel good either... It was an uneasy feeling, intimidating, like being naked... but she was all alone there.

Usually. But tonight she thought she heard faint voices for the first time, calling for her softly..._'Orihiiimeee...!'_

She woke up with a start, breathing rather quickly.

_'Just a dream...' _she told herself.

She looked around, and found Ichigo's place empty and cold next to her. She couldn't feel him anywhere close. He must have went out again in the middle of the night without her knowing. She felt uneasy, worried, and she couldn't help being a little hurt. At least he could have left a note...

Just then, she heard a ringing voice. It was not her phone. It was Ichigo's. He had left it behind. But not the normal one, it was his soul pager. Orihime looked at the number, than picked it up.

'Hi, Rukia-chan!'

'Orihime? Hi! Can I talk to Ichigo, please?'

'… he's not here... he's...'

Rukia heard that her voice was somewhat higher then usual, a betraying sign... She sighed.

'Oh no!... Just what did he do again?...' She could hear Orihime sobbing now. 'Should I come over? I could be there in 10 minutes...'

'Oh, Rukia-chan!'

_AN: Reviews are as welcome as ever!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Special note on Fan Fiction update glitch:** If you're also having trouble with updating your stories just try replacing the word "property" with "content" in the URL, it should work. (Original credit for the info to Mymomomo and Child of the Ashes.)

Chapter 2

As Rukia approached the Urahara Shop she saw Ururu and Jinta sitting on the floor before the shop's entrance with pained expressions on there faces. Rukia didn't need to search far for the reason of there gloom, for the whole place behind them was shaking with such heavy, out of control spirit energy, that even she herself needed a second to compose herself before she was able to approach further. The creepy girl spotted Rukia, and her face lit up.

'Good! Kuchiki-san is here, she should be able to put a stop to this...'

'I wouldn't count on it Ururu!' Jinta told her, standing up. 'Wanna make a bet on how far in she will be able to go?'

Rukia raised an eyebrow at him. He only bowed in front of her, with a mischievous smile, gesturing for her to step inside with both hands.

'You haven't improved one bit...' she scowled at him.

Rukia went in. The stairs for the underground training area were open. As she put one foot on the first step she needed to grab the frame to prevent her knee touching the ground, because a huge wave of heavy spiritual pressure just shoot out, followed by dust and bits of debris in the air. Jinta's snort reached her from behind. She used the sudden rising anger inside her to sharpen and focus her own spiritual pressure, and finally went in.

She could hardly see where she was going, because the dust was so dense like she was in the middle of a sand-storm. Shouts and bangs of explosions reached her ears. Then as she was almost down she heard voices.

'Again! And put the levels higher!'

'But Kurosaki-san... they are at there maximum, and you're battling against four... and I certainly won't bring out more, as you already destroyed two of them...You do realize how much they worth?You're only supposed to beat them, not wreck them completely you know...'

Rukia could see now the outline of the shopkeeper Urahara Kisuke, standing a few feet ahead of her in his favorite green cloak and funny hat. As the dust cleared the tall form of the substitute soul reaper responsible for all the mess also came into view. He was in his black bankai outfit, with Tensa Zangetsu in his hand, and his hollow mask covered his face completely even when talking to his trainer. Rukia bit her lip. _'If he gets any stronger than this, I don't know if I will be able to do this any more...'_ she thought bitterly. But then she remembered Orihime's face from earlier, and it gave her strength. _'I just wish I knew how she puts up with this...'_ She gathered all her strength and put her best murderous glare on her face, and flash-stepped in front of Ichigo. She raised Sode no Shirayuki to block the instinctive move he made against her. They were crossing swords now.

'Rukia...?' Ichigo asked nonplussed. He removed his mask instantly. As soon as it was off, he received a surprise kick from her foot, which collided with his face with grate force. He fell to the ground. She stepped right on top of him, kicking him further with every single word she spoke.

'You!... Complete!... Asshole!... Ichigo!... Kurosaki!'

'Hey! Ouch! Cut that out you little freak!'

'You made her cry! You insensitive wart!'

His eyes became round, and he made no further attempt of defending himself from her attacks, thus receiving a mouthful of sand when she kicked his head right into the ground this time.

'...Ori...hime...' he managed to choke out finally.

'Yes! Orihime!'

Rukia stood aside now, crossing her arms in front of her, having decided that he had calmed down enough. Ichigo sat up, massaging the back of his head with his hands.

Urahara was watching the scene amused.

'I think I'll just take these back for now...' he said, indicating four robot looking creatures around them. He went to retrieve the keys from there backs, which allowed them to be filled with spiritual pressure, making them opponents for training purposes. 'You two just continue please! There is nothing like a chat between old friends...' he added in a singsong voice.

Rukia waited till the shopkeeper was out of sight, then sat herself onto a rock not far from Ichigo. He continued to look down, his shoulders bent.

'Rukia... It's just... I... I don't know what I can say... '

Her expression slowly softened at seeing him obviously miserable.

'So, are you going to tell me?... I heard what happened, and it's really awful... but things like this happen sometimes, you have to know that... but you have been like this longer now.' Her eyes tightened. 'There is more to this! Ichigo!'

He didn't answer or looked up. She went and sat on the ground right next to him. He finally looked up with rage glowing in his eyes and spoke.

'I have to get stronger! I won't accept it! I just won't accept not being able to save someone! I have to get as strong that I'm able to save everyone!'

'Ichigo... You know that's unreasonable... impossible even...'

'I won't accept it! Maybe your right, but even so, I can't accept it!' His face was miserable again.

'But...'

'If I can't protect everyone, every time, how will I protect my own family?'

'Oh...' she said softly, as her odd violet eyes became round. He needn't say more, she understood him now completely.

After a short silence Ichigo continued.

'I don't think I'm ready for this, Rukia... I want to have a family... I really want it... it's just... I'm worried about Orihime all the time, I'm worried about her so much... and I know she can take care of herself... but a baby...'

Rukia was looking at him with her eyes misted over. She had never seen him so vulnerable before... she decided it was almost cute... she smiled a little remembering his overwhelming force from earlier and comparing it to the weakness before her now. She choose her next words carefully.

'I know your case is a special one, Ichigo, being half soul reaper, half human, and having met dangers far above average... but I think that basically all father feels the same way... It's just natural.'

She smiled at him encouragingly, until he returned it with a small half-smile of his own.

'I think you should try to talk to your father about this...' she added.

He snorted.

'Seriously!' she said with force. 'I know he's crazy most of the time, but I think he can be serious about something like this. And I think you should also tell Orihime!'

'No way!' his face became angry at the idea. 'I don't want to freak her out... or make her cry again!'

Rukia sighed.

'Ichigo... you don't always have to be the strong one... Isn't marriage supposed to mean that you're shearing the burdens?'

'It's not that easy!'

'Yes, because it's all better keeping it inside you, and venting your feelings by destroying Urahara's place!'

'I didn't destroy it!' he protested.

She laughed, and he relaxed. Both of them looked around the training area. Large craters decorated the scene, with one side of the huge cave completely fallen in. Two smoke columns marked the places where the two training robots met there ends...

'I guess I made some improvements to it...' he finally laughed with her.

'Are you ready to go home now?' Rukia asked him.

He frowned.

'I don't know... I will go home and apologize to Orihime, but I'm just still too full of adrenaline... I think I need to calm down some more.' He suddenly looked at her and grinned. 'Say, Rukia! Wanna train some with me? I promise to go easy on you, really!'

'What?' her face turned a fine shade of red.

'Renji told me that you're training for bankai... maybe I could help! And it would be good for me too, giving me a chance to work on controlling my spiritual pressure.' He said with a taunting smile.

'Baka!' Rukia fumed standing up, and raising her sword. '… I don't need bankai to take on a pig headed idiot like you!'

He just grinned at her, raising his own sword, and saying playfully:

'Come and get me then!'

They proceeded into a friendly fight, much to there delight, both using only shikai. After ten minutes into it both had large grins on there faces as they left all there worries behind for a short time. It was like a pillow-fight between brother and sister: teasing, sweet and purely enjoyable...

'Your flash-step has improved...' he commented after a series of very fast leaps. 'I hardly need to hold back...'

'Geez! What a compliment! Hado number 31! Shakkaho!'

The red energy ball slightly burned the left sleeve of his robe.

'Hah! At least I'll always be better at kido!'

He laughed. 'That's for sure!' Then he charged at her with a little more force, but still in control. He pinned her to a rock wall with the exact force which she was just able to withstand with her blade.

'Rukia!' he called to her seriously, and waited until she looked up, with her eyes questioning him. 'Thank you!' And he privately added to himself: _'You've always been able to do this for me... to stop the rain...'_

**Author's note:**_Just if the chapter gave the wrong idea, I'll state it right now: No, Ichigo's not going to cheat on Orihime with Rukia! __Of course he'd never do that! __But they do share a special bound, even now._

_Review please!_

_Oh, and prepare yourselves for a one year time skip in the next chapter! (Daddy Ichigo makes an entrance...)_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

/ **time skip:** a year passed since the first 2 chapters, and Ichigo's and Orihime's baby boy, Sora is now 9 month old. /

Orihime came down the stairs. She was fiddling with the clasp of her necklace on the way: the finishing touch to her outfit for the special evening ahead. She wore a colorful skirt decorated with her favorite Asian flower design, and a dark blue blouse which matched it well.

As she entered the small living room she heard laughter, and an adorable sight met her eyes. Her husband was lying on the floor, and Sora was above him, in his outstretched hands, laughing merrily, and trying very hard to reach his face to grab his father's nose, or hair, or anything his small hands would touch. Ichigo had heard her come in, but was still looking at his son when he spoke excitedly.

'Orihime! Orihime! He just spoke! He called me Dad!'

A snort came from the armchair near by, in which Tatsuki was sitting. 'No he did not! He just said "dadada" which is common baby crow!'

Ichigo scowled at her. Sora finally managed to grab a fistful of his hair and pulled on it mercilessly. He jerked his head away from his grasp, and pulled in a sharp breath as his gaze fell on his wife. She looked so stunning! It's been a while since he saw her in anything else than baggy home-clothes, or jeans and shirt. Her figure was just as perfect as before her pregnancy, if anything, it was even better. And that blue blouse happened to be his favorite on her, it brought out all the beautiful creamy colors of her skin, and made a nice contrast with her bright shiny hair. Ichigo looked at her with his mouth hanging open. But he soon payed for it when his son gave him an other fierce thug, this time pulling one of his ears.

'Ouch! Oh, Orihime! Wow! Your so beautiful! Perfect!'

She smiled, coloring a little.

'You better get ready too, Ichigo!' Tatsuki said, reaching out to take Sora from him. 'Better not make your perfect wife waiting...'

After he went upstairs, Orihime addressed her friend.

'Thank you so much Tatsuki-chan for looking after our little Sora tonight!'

'Hey! Don't mention it! You two need time out from time to time... and besides, you know how much I like babysitting him! He's such a cutie!' she looked at the baby boy with shining eyes. 'I hate to admit it, but here is finally a man who's able to get to me!'

They both laughed.

'Um... he already had dinner, but there is a bottle of tee for him on the table... and I put fresh diapers and his pg next to his bed... but I'll probably be back to put him to sleep myself...'

'Don't worry Hime! And take your time! I'll have everything under control!'

'Ok... but please, promise to call me if you need to...'

'I promise, if that makes you feel better. But I suggest you just put everything out of your mind for tonight! Enjoy yourself!'

'Thank you, Tatsuki-chan!' She smiled, then went and lifted Sora out of her friends arms for a goodby kiss. 'Aww! I miss you already...'

Later that evening Orihime looked around a spacious room with round tables dressed in white silk covers, and laden with fine porcelain and silverware. A soft music was playing in the background, and candlelight danced on the walls clad in a deep red tapestry. She fingered her glass of wine from which the faint light sent sparkles in every direction.

'Oh! This was so good!' She said, sighing contently. 'I wish I had an other stomach to try out some different ones too... But I'm just full...'

'There is still the dessert...' Ichigo said with a half grin. He knew Orihime would never refuse such an offer. She liked everything sweet...

'Oh, my... if it's as good as the main course, then I think I'm doomed!'

They both laughed.

'I still don't get why you choose to take me somewhere this... classy... there is not even any occasion...'

His trademark scowl appeared on his face for an instant.

'Of course there is! This is the first time I get to actually take you anywhere since Sora was born... and besides, I don't need an occasion to show how much I love you!'

She blushed, and he thought how cute it was that she kept doing this, even after all this time. He handed her the menu, and occupied himself with just watching her beauty while she made her choice.

'Truffle, Cheesecake, Irish Cream Mousse, Rice Pudding...Wow, they've really got everything... Oh! I think I feel like eating a simple apple pie for now... although I don't think they would put red bean paste on top of it... ' She added with a dreamy expression on her face.

Ichigo signaled for the waiter to come, who appeared by there table so fast you would have thought he just flash-stepped there.

'A chocolate cake, and the lady would like an apple pie with red bean paste, if that can be arranged.'

'Ichigo!' Orihime cried out in embarrassment. Her husband however continued to look calmly up to the waiter. To his credit, he didn't even raise an eyebrow, just asked:

'On top of it, or next to?'

Orihime hung her head to hide her rosy cheeks, and her answer was barely audible. 'On top of it please...'

After the waiter left, she started to giggle.

'Is there anything you wouldn't do for me, Ichigo?' she asked teasingly.

He was obviously pleased with himself, smile wide.

'Let me think... As long as you don't ask me to taste your dessert... '

After leaving the restaurant they decided to take a little walk around town, going nowhere in particular. Karakura didn't offer many romantic spots, so they just walked a little on the riverside and went through the small park.

'You know, this feels kind of unreal...' said Orihime with her eyes lost in the distance.

'What does?' asked Ichigo.

'I mean it's really nice, it's just that lately I was so caught up in everything concerning Sora, that now it's weird being just a woman and not somebody's mother for now... if you understand what I mean...'

Ichigo stopped, put his arms around her, and kissed her lips softly.

'You're a wonderful mother!'

'Really...?' she asked shyly. 'But I think I might have slightly neglected you...'

He just laughed, and kissed her again. He led her to a bench near by, and they sat in silence for a while, watching more and more stars appear on the slowly darkening sky.

'I just remembered...' she said abruptly. '… that this is the place where you defeated that Menos Grande...'

'Huh, I guess you're right... My first ever Menos Grande... I didn't think about that... but hey! How do know about that? You weren't even there!'

'Yes I was.' she said with a smile. 'We had just discovered our powers with Sado-kun, and after Urahara-san explained everything, he told us to watch you fight from afar...'

'Why did he say that?'

'To give us a chance to decide... we had to decide then if we were up to all this... and I was afraid at first. This whole world of hollows and soul reapers seamed confusing and scary. But I knew that if I wanted to be a part of your life, I'll have to cope with it!'

He looked into her eyes with disbelief.

'And you wanted to be a part of my life... even back then?'

'Yes.' she answered gently. 'Even back then.'

They both smiled.

'I never understood how could I be so lucky to get your attention in the first place...' he said.

'Oh, it's easy!' she laughed. 'You fascinated me!'

'What?'

'When we started High School, and I learned that we will be in the same class, I was so happy! You see... I remembered you from the very first time we met...'

'But that was...'

'Yes... when my brother died.'

'I didn't think you would even remember...'

'I do. It was the worst day of my life, yet that was also the day I met you... And you were so kind to me... Of course Tatsuki-chan knew you, and we talked about you, so when we met on the first school day it felt like I already knew you well.' she suddenly started laughing. 'And you walked in all scowling and being "serious" and scarring everybody... I found it funny! I wondered why a nice guy like you choose to wear an ugly mask, and I wowed to find out someday...'

Ichigo didn't know how to feel about this confession, but her wife was making so funny faces during the whole speech that he had to laugh. Orihime continued her story.

'I don't really know when that "fascination" actually turned into love... but I think it was even before we went to Soul Society together...'

Ichigo was thoughtful for a moment, then startled her with a question.

'You know, when was the first time I knew I had feelings for you?'

She looked up with interest. This was a thing she wanted to know very bad, but was always chicken to ask.

'It was when you were kidnapped... I woke up that morning, with all my injuries healed, and I found traces of your spiritual pressure on me... I recognized you right away, even though I usually suck at identifying spiritual pressure like this... But yours is so sweet to me... unique. And when I learned that you were taken to Hueco Mundo I knew right away that there is nothing I wouldn't do to get you back...'

'But you didn't say anything... not even when we got back...'

'No...' he looked a bit embarrassed, but her eyes showing real curiosity encouraged him to go on. 'You see, I was angry with myself for having feelings for you, and tried to fight against them for a long time...'

She looked puzzled. He smiled at her sadly.

'Of course you don't understand. Because you are so sweet and loving, it's like your whole being is one large beating heart... Loving is like second nature to you... But I'm not like that. To me loving is sometimes a little scary...'

She waited for him to continue, but when he didn't she asked:

'What was so scary about it?'

A slight frown clouded his face. He really didn't want this conversation to become this serious, but he had to answer now.

'The thought that I could loose the one I love...' he finally said, barely above a whisper.

Orihime's eyes were on the night sky, where the half crescent of the moon was coming up now. She finally answered, also whispering.

'I think I can understand that really well...'

They sat in silence for a few minutes, unconsciously moving closer and closer, until Orihime's head came to rest on Ichigo's shoulder. She closed her eyes, enjoying the moment. But suddenly she sprang up, nearly bumping her head into his in the process.

'Oh, we should head back! I want to be there to kiss Sora goodnight!'

'All right then...' he said, but pulled her back on the bench for a last kiss all the same.

They started walking home, hand in hand. Orihime thought about how they looked like a freshly made pair, and it made her giggle. This was certainly the most perfect "date" they ever had.

They were almost home, only a few streets away, when suddenly Ichigo jumped up, as he felt a huge wave of spiritual pressure wash over him. Orihime also froze beside him. The pressure was coming from the direction of there house! Orihime opened her mouth to say something, but Ichigo's body already collapsed down beside her, and he himself flash-stepped away...

Orihime was momentary thorn, not knowing what to do, not wanting to just leave his body lying there, but she had no other choice. She ran after him as fast as she could. _'This spiritual pressure is familiar somehow, but I can't remember from where... It feels hollowish, but his badge didn't signal...' _

Orihime ran towards the house as fast as she could.

_**Author's Note:** Sorry about the cliffhanger, I promise fast update on this one to make it up to you..._

_I noticed that my English vocabulary is sadly at it's limit when it comes to in depth conversations, or describing scenery or a character's outward appearance... All of these things are in this one chapter, so I hope it's still enjoyable._

_Oh, and this story will mainly revolve around the relationship of Orihime and Ichigo, though I'll try to put in as much father-son and mother-son interaction as I can._


	4. Chapter 4

_(A fast update as pomised... Couldn't leave you all worried!)_

Chapter 4

When Orihime finally entered the house, she heard angry voices yelling.

'Are you freakin' out of you're mind? Tell me one good reason why I shouldn't rip your head off!'

'Oh! But he was enjoying it! Honestly! Weren't you little tike?'

'Get you're hands off him!'

Ichigo was holding Sora tightly in his hands, while Tatsuki was on the ground, massaging her bottom, onto which she clearly had fallen down, and a man with funnily cut bright yellow hair a bowler hat and a narrow tie was standing opposite them, lifting his hand to stroke the little boy's chin.

'Loosen up a little, Ichigo...'

'You know you scared the hell out of me, Shinji!'

Tatsuki looked up, and her face was strange, it almost looked like she was about to cry, which Orihime certainty never witnessed before. Her fearful eyes were now on Ichigo, and judging by the heavy spiritual pressure swirling around him Orihime was certain he removed his hollow mask just an instant before she entered...

'I'm sorry, Ichigo... I know Hirako-kun is a friend of yours, so I didn't know you would disapprove...'

'It's all right, Tatsuki!' he gave her one hand and helped her up. 'It's not your fault!' Then he shoot an other dirty look at the visored. 'Just what kind of creep would think of playing peekaboo with a baby using there hollow mask!'

Orihime couldn't help herself, and laughed out loud mostly out of relief. It still earned her a disapproving look from her husband. Sora, who just noticed his mother, gave her a huge smile, then lifted his hands, pointing first at Shinji's, then at his father's face, an adorable little laughter leaving his mouth. This was his way of letting his mother know what happened. Then he reached up to his father's face, touching it a few times, impatiently. Ichigo's eyebrows disappeared high into his forehead. Then he slowly reached up, and pulled out his mask once more. Sora giggled harder then before. Ichigo made the mask disappear in a wave of smoke.

'Grate... just grate... now I really will rip your head off, Shinji...'

'I've got to hand it to you, Ichigo, I've never seen a baby with more spiritual potential before...' Shinji commented, apparently untouched by his continued assertions of killing him. 'He not only can see you, and touch you in that form, but can withstand the spiritual energy from up close! His own spiritual pressure is hard to make out jet, as it's quite unsettled, just swirling around, and gets mingled with yours and Orihime's, but I bet it will be something...'

During his speech Ichigo went and handed Sora to Orihime.

'If you're done with the analysis...' he said through gritted teeth. '...I trust you can behave yourself for 2 minutes, while I go collect my body! Then, if you don't give me a good enough reason why you decided to uninvitedly drop in, I'll just kick your ass!'

The former soul reaper Captain gave him a toothy grin.

'You're welcome to try...'

After Ichigo got his body back safely he and Shinji settled down in the living room. Orihime and Tatsuki were upstairs, putting Sora to sleep.

'So, what's the deal?' Ichigo asked grumpily.

'You're as forward as ever...' answered Shinji, positioning himself cozily in an armchair. 'I'll never forget when you barged in to our hideout and requested us to teach you controlling your hollow, or else...' The toothy grin again... 'I thought the lovely Orihime-chan would be able to knock some manners into you... And I already got what I came here for anyway...'

'What do you mean already got...?'

'I came here to just check on you... see how you're doing with hollowfication these day's. And, thanks to your son, I'm now satisfied. You know you should be thankful to me! Hiyori also wanted to come – she gets bored sometimes, and she wouldn't admit it, but she misses beating the shit out of you - but I convinced her that I'm enough...'

'Wait! Check on me? What ever is your reason for that, Idiot! It's not like I can't handle my hollow!'

Shinji sighed.

'Always so sensitive... Listen, Ichigo! I guess you're aware now of the fact, that subduing your hollow is not a thing one can accomplish for once and for all... being a visored means you have to fight for control over and over again.'

'Tell me something new...'

'And I've been on the wagon longer than you... and we 8 always have each other to trust to notice the warning signs... but you're coping with it all alone... And well too! But one can never be cautious enough...'

'Why now?'

'Have you noticed, that things have been rather quiet on the Hueco Mundo front for some time now?'

Ichigo thought about it for a while. It was true: there were hardy a few hollow attacks over the past 3 month... It's not like he would complain... he had enough on his mind right now even without his soul reaper duties. Maybe that's why he didn't grasp that earlier.

'It's like the quiet before a storm coming...' Shinji said with narrowed eyes.

Ichigo laughed.

'Since when have you been so melodramatic, Shinji? I'm not saying it's not strange, but it's useless to just worry about it! If something comes, we'll just deal with it... Unless there is something more...'

'Yes... You see this is the other reason for me to want to investigate your hollowfication... we sensed some curious spirit energy around Karakura town lately... Hachi was the one to pick up on it first, as he's the best with this kind of thing, but later we all felt it...'

'A curious spirit energy...' Ichigo repeated with his eyebrows furrowed. 'Curious as...?'

'… as it's kind of similar to our own.'

'I see.'

Orihime just came down the stairs. Shinji spotted her.

'Oh, lovely Orihime-chan! I didn't even have the chance to give you a proper greeting before!' his arms extended, as though wanting to embrace her. Ichigo's hand grabbed the collar of his shirt promptly.

'Don't even think about it...' He looked theatrically at his watch, exclaiming: 'Oh, my just look at the time...' He started dragging the visored to the front doors. 'I'm sure you must be going now!'

Seeing the look in his eyes Shinji decided not to push his luck further that night, and allowed himself to be steered out without much resistance. The two man looked at each other on the doorstep.

'I'll keep my eyes open from now on, and let you know if I find something.' Ichigo told him seriously, returning to there previous conversation. Shinji nodded.

'And we'll do the same.'

Then he raised his hand in a farewell wave, mostly for Orihime's benefit - who just struck her head out over her husband's back curiously - before walking slowly away.

'Bye, Hirako-kun...'

'And Shinji!' Ichigo called after him. 'Next time you decide to visit, just give a call beforehand!'

The visored mumbled something incoherent, then just flash-stepped away.

It was almost totally dark in the small but cozy bedroom. Ichigo was lying on his back, watching the ceiling with eyes wide open. Orihime was fast asleep next to him, her breath a steady rhythm. His mind was all occupied with everything that happened, and everything Shinji had told him.

_'Trust Shinji to ruin a perfect evening! I really did freak out when I felt that spiritual pressure...' _He knew now that he overreacted, and felt guilty about he had stopped, even for a moment he was sure he would have been able to recognize the visored, and saved Tatsuki a near heart attack. _'Come to think of it, I can't even remember pulling out my mask... it must have been instinctive... I thought that my son was in danger after all!' _He pressed his hands over his tired eyes.

_'And what is this rubbish of an unknown spiritual pressure?' _his thoughts now returned to the confusing news Shinji brought._ 'I should call Ishida in the morning to ask what he thinks...'_

Orihime uttered a soft moan in her sleep. Ichigo glanced over at her briefly before continuing his train of thought.

'_A spiritual pressure similar to a visored's?' _He knew what Shinji was talking about. Everyone's spiritual pressure felt different, but there were some major characteristics about them – density, heaviness, color - by which you could tell soul reapers, hollows and humans apart. Visored's were also different. After training with them his own spiritual pressure also changed. _'But the visoreds were originally created by the Hog__y__oku... and my hollow transformation was also triggered by that... it's just impossible for someone new to __surface__ now... after all Aisen is locked away safely with the cursed thing still inside him, is he not? No wonder Shinji is put on...'_

Orihime now started tossing and turning in her sleep, and Ichigo wondered if she was having a nightmare. He lightly caressed her face. She didn't wake, and after a few seconds she started to whimper.

'Orihime!' he called out to her softly.

She opened her eyes and blinked a few times.

'Oh, I'm sorry!' she mumbled sleepily. 'Did I wake you? Just go back to sleep! It's nothing...'

'I was up anyway... did you have a bad dream?'

'… kind of...'

'What was it about?'

'It's always the same. It's not really bad... just disturbing.'

'So, you've had this one before, huh? Tell me about it! Maybe it will help.'

Ichigo was prepared to hear about something crazy, like alien robots taking over Earth, or sumo wrestlers drowning each other in a bowl of pudding... these were the kind of things his wife usually dreamed of after all. Orihime collected her thoughts while rubbing the sleepiness out of her eyes.

'I don't know where to start... It's kind of hard to explain. In my dream, there is this strange city of huge buildings... and I walk on the buildings sides like it was a horizontal surface... all the windows are closed... I can see the sky, and clouds on one side, and the ground on the other... it's like somebody flipped everything 90 degrees...'

During her speech Ichigo's eyes became more and more round and distant... finally he became totally rigid, like he just received a shock. Orihime continued.

'It would make more scene if I would draw it... Everything is so huge there, that I feel myself tiny. And there is nowhere to go... Ichigo?'

He grabbed her shoulder fiercely, and looked into her eyes with a strong emotion, that Orihime didn't quite recognize.

'Who did you find there Orihime? Is there someone there?'

'No, I'm alone...'

He sighed, and relaxed his hold on her.

'… but sometimes I hear voices...'

He went rigid again. Orihime thought to herself: _'It's strange... almost like he knew that was the question to ask...' _Ichigo went further from her, relishing her shoulder. He sat up on the side of the bed, and looked at her with unfathomable eyes. Orihime was confused. _'Why did he distance himself from me?'_

Ichigo realized through the fog of his own disturbed mind, that he probably scared her, and mentally cursed himself for it. Maybe he overreacted again... '_But no! __It's just too much of a coincidence! Is it really possible for her to enter... to enter my inner world? How? __A__ll of this is so...'_ What would be the prefect expression? Unexpected? Unsettling? Scary? He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He pulled himself together, and tried to put on a normal expression.

'Orihime... please, tell me... how long have you had these... dreams...?'

'For years now. I can't remember when exactly I had it first.'

Ichigo tried to think. _'For years? If she had these dreams for years without anything happening that must mean it's nothing to worry about...__But if she's really inside my world, how can it be that I doesn't feel her there?'_ He needed to know more, but was afraid to question Orihime further. Instead he smiled at her, and pulled her close to him.

'Ichigo...'

'It's ok, Orihime... It's just that you're dream... reminded me of something.' It wasn't exactly a lie either... he just wasn't telling everything. 'Try to go back to sleep... I'll watch over you!'

'But I don't understand... You seam... upset.'

Ichigo sighed.

'I'm not upset...' Now that was a lie! Deep down he felt ashamed of himself. But his instinct to protect her proved more strong then the regret. 'Look, I promise we will talk more about this some other time...' Yes, some other time, when he himself knows more...

Orihime looked up at him and though she didn't understand why he acted like this, his steady gaze and promise comforted her.

'Ok.' She closed her eyes, and let his strong arms gently rock her back to sleep.

Later, Ichigo entered his inner world through meditation. It took him a while, as he was never grate in this. When he was finally in, he was frustrated by the fact that it was empty: no Zangetsu, no Tensa, no hollow... _'Where is everyone? They aren't hiding, are they?'_ He was really starting to get pissed off now.

'Hey!' he cried on the top of his voice, while raising his sword. 'Come on out! I need to talk to you!'

But no answer came...

_Author's Note: Finally! A little more plot development! And a nice long chapter. I hope you like where I'm going with this... Please let me know!_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

'So, Hat-and-cloaks... I'm waiting for your brilliant ideas!'

Ichigo's face wore his most scowling expression possible. After serious debates with himself he decided to let only two people in on the secret of Orihime's dreams: Urahara and his dad. He considered asking Shinji also, but that would mean that all the visoreds would come to know in time, and he wanted it to be kept quiet...

After he told them everything, though both shocked at such thing being possible neither doubted that Orihime somehow indeed must have access to his inner world. The question remained: What should they do about it...

'How could it have happened...? I've never heard of such a thing before...' said Urahara, thinking. He was trying very hard not to look too excited, but his scientist side was truly intrigued by this new discovery...

'I don't know what's all the fuss is about, Urahara!' Isshin stated. 'I think this just shows the girl is insanely in love with my undeserving fool of a son, and as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing!'

'Yes, I would normally agree, even if it's unheard of, and quite unnatural. But there is a tiny little problem.'

'Tiny?' Ichigo fumed. 'If you happen to remember there is a freaking hollow inside.' he bellowed, pointing a finger at his own temple. Isshin looked at him amused.

'You know my son, with any other doctor, this last sentence of yours would get you a long time residence in a cozy little asylum...'

'Don't you start with me...' Ichigo's fists balled up, ready to punch.

'My my... concentrate you two...' Urahara tried to keep the conversation in line. 'So yes... the hollow.'

'And it's your fault it's there in the first place so you'd better come up with a decent idea!' Isshin now turned to him. 'It better not do anything to my beloved daughter-in-law!'

'I wouldn't let that happen...' said Ichigo through gritted teeth.

'Of course not!' his father agreed, giving him a hard punch to the middle of his back.

Urahara continued.

_'_My only guess is, that your high amount of spiritual pressure, which is always flowing out had an affect on her... But how can it be possible that you were not even aware of her being there, until she told you about it...? So many questions... What troubles me the most is the fact that you can't get in touch with your own powers right now... definitely not healthy... We must do something about that, and maybe if we succeed we will be closer to solve this mystery! But in the mean time... Ichigo? Do you think it is possible for you to... spend less time around her?'

All three were silent for a moment digesting this.

'What are you talking about?' shouted Isshin finally. 'They are married, for havens sake! How could he possibly do that?'

Both man were looking at Ichigo. He only looked at Urahara.

'Do you think there is danger?' he asked in a small voice, though his own thoughts were loudly screaming the affirmative.

'I can't know for sure... just for safe measure...'

Finally Ichigo nodded.

'I'd do anything to keep her safe... including staying away from her...'

'It will only be for a few weeks... and when you are around her you should try holding back on your spiritual pressure too...'

He nodded again.

'I don't like this...' Isshin's eyes narrowed. 'At least tell her right away what's happening! She should know!'

'I don't know about that...' said Ichigo uncertainly. Telling the one he loved the most in the whole wide world that he might be dangerous for her seamed like a very uninviting idea. And she would be worried... he didn't want that. But he didn't want to lie either.

'What do you think?' he asked Urahara hesitantly.

'Hmm... I can't tell how it would affect her, or her access to your world to know the truth... I would say the best policy now is to leave everything as it is, and keep her in the dark. Until we know more...'

Ichigo was relived the shopkeeper took this point of view, and his suggesting that there is a slight possibility that Orihime knowing could mean more danger for her made up his mind.

'She has enough on her mind with caring for Sora 24 hours a day... She doesn't need all this supernatural confusing shit in her life as well.' he said.

Isshin looked angry.

'But she's already in it, damn it! And Urahara doesn't know what he's talking about! A married couple should have no secrets! At least I was always honest with Masaki...'

Urahara made a coughing sound, but Isshin ignored him, and continued.

'And what about your son?'

'Do you think I like the idea, old man? I'll probably miss them like crazy! But I want to keep them safe!'

'It's true, that I only gave my opinion as a scientist, and not a marriage consultant...' Urahara said. 'But I just want to be cautious. I'll stay by what I said before...'

Now Ichigo had a fleeting image of the two man before him as two little fairies of his subconscious: Isshin in white with wings and a gloria, and Urahara with devil-horns sticking out of his striped hat... They were telling him the exact things that he himself was struggling with. He was starting to have afterthoughts about his choice for confidantes... it was like they weren't helping at all!

'How can you even think, that you can pull this off without her noticing?' questioned Isshin, uncharacteristically scowling now. 'Ah... Wait! Should I write the referral for the asylum right away?' he added with sarcasm heavy in his voice. 'That would be one way to do it... They really do have excellent beds you know... and you would only have to act yourself and drop a few lines about soul reapers and saving the world now and again...'

'Some father you are!'

'Look at it this way Isshin!' Urahara decided to defend Ichigo. 'We don't know what triggers Orihime's little journeys, but if I'm right about it's being connected to Ichigo's spiritual pressure, then physical separation for a short time could help. It's simple hypothesis and testing...'

'Simple for you maybe...' Isshin grunted. But Urahara continued.

'We will have to tell her eventually, to know if we'd been right. Let's say we give it a week or two... But if it's not caused merely by being exposed to spiritual pressure... Ichigo! Can you tell us exactly what happened between you two before her dream? Maybe that could give us some further clues!'

Ichigo tried to calm down enough to think back properly. He told them about spending the whole evening together, just the two of them. He recounted the unpleasant interruption of Shinji, and the uproar it caused.

'So... you hollowfied...' said Urahara thoughtfully, beating a rhythm with his fan in his palm. 'When was the last time you did that, before yesterday I mean?'

Ichigo racked his brain.

'I can't really tell... long ago, that's for sure... I think it was for training... when I wrecked those robots of yours you made me pay hell for...'

'And what did that Shinji want with you anyway?' Isshin asked.

'Oh, yeah! I almost forgot all about it!' Ichigo now told them about the curious spiritual pressure and the visored's dark hints about a coming storm.

The two older man looked at each other. Ichigo couldn't really make out the exchange that went on, and when they looked back to him they both wore neutral expressions.

'What?' he asked them, annoyed.

'Oh, I'm sure it's nothing you need to worry about right now...' said Urahara.

'Yeah.' agreed Isshin. 'You just focus on solving the problem with Orihime-chan, that's far more important!'

Ichigo fumed inside. _'And he has the nerve to lecture me about honesty...'_

Ichigo went home late that day, feeling all the heavy burden of the task he'd took upon himself. He was never a good liar and he hated concealing things. Of course being a soul reaper meant that he had to conceal a lot of things from a lot of people, but those were not his own secrets to tell... He was usually straight forward about everything else, even if it coast him trouble. And concealing things from Orihime was something he never did before.

As he entered the house he heard voices coming from the kitchen. He went to the door, and peered inside. Orihime was sitting at the table with her back to him and Sora was in his high chair. There robes, the table and even the floor was covered with a strange violet colored grunch. Only the lion plushy, dancing on the table somehow still managed to retrain it's usual color. Orihime was holding a bib up in her hands, showing it to Kon.

'No way... I'm not wearing it!'

'But Kon! This is the mantle of the grate hero, The King of Justice, The Mighty Lion!'

'Mighty Lion?'

'Yes!' Orihime's eyes were shining with excitement, as her hands now tied the frilly bib onto the plushy's back. Then she put a spoon in his hand. 'And here is your laser beam weapon! Go Mighty Lion Hero! Go for the bull's eye!'

'Like this?' Kon asked uncertainly, while putting some of the grunch on his spoon, and putting it into Sora's obediently opening mouth.

'Yay! A perfect hit!' I knew you could do it!'

But she cheered too soon, because the next moment the violet "laser beam" shoot back out of Sora's mouth, drenching the Mighty Lion Hero completely.

'Whops! I'm sorry, Kon! Beetroot is not his favorite, it seems...'

Kon was now living with them. First Ichigo left him with Yuzu, but he was so miserable about it, that after making him swear seriously to everything holy that he will behave under his roof, he grumpily allowed him houseroom. To his surprise the mod-soul kept his promise most of the time and only annoyed him with comments on how to improve there love life when they were just the two of them... Kon was not a fool, he knew Orihime was a much better mistress for him than Yuzu: she gave him a complete cupboard, equipped with a dolls bed and he even had his own TV. She was always kind to him, and he didn't have to pretend to be a mere stuffed animal. The only price he had to pay for this heavenly comfort was to give up his ambition of burying himself in the worlds most magnificent valley of boobs... and as there were many other boobs out there he thought he could live with that.

Orihime now turned to flash a smile at Ichigo. Of course she didn't need to see him to know he was there. When ever he was around his spiritual pressure seamed to embrace her.

'Hi! You're a little late, so we already ate, but I'll warm up your dinner right away!'

'Thanks!' he said hanging his coat up. He went to the table and positioned himself in one of the chairs, after cleaning most of the beetroot of it with a cloth lying there. He averted his gaze from Orihime, who was fiddling with the microwave, humming merrily to herself. She came to him finally with his plate, placing it before him and planting a swift kiss on his cheek.

'Anything out of the ordinary?' she asked lightly.

Ichigo almost visibly cringed before reminding himself, that this was just the question she asked him routinely almost every day. _'Damn! Guilty conscience...'_ He thought and forced himself to reply in the usual manner just a second late.

'No... no hollows, no fights.'

'That's good to hear!' she kissed him again.

Ichigo started to dig in, not really aware of what he was eating, and only half aware of Orihime chatting happily about there afternoon in the park, while occupying herself with the dishes. His own dark thoughts almost ruled out everything else.

Meanwhile Kon still tried to persuade Sora to eat the beetroot, now pulling the bib up to cover his head. One of the reasons why Ichigo was comfortable with the mod-soul being there (apart from feeling responsible for him) was that deep down - though he tried hard to conceal it - Kon really cared for Sora, ever since he was born. The little boy simply seamed to have a talent for making people like him. There was no other explanation for it. And Kon was not really that rotten on the inside as he usually choose to present himself. This was not the first time he was volunteerly helping Orihime with Sora.

'Open wide...!' the Lion said, trying to sound confident, but his legs were shaking under his "mantle".

Ichigo now saw Sora's smiling face, his shining eyes on Kon. He didn't know why, but somehow this site now pissed him off.

'Let me help you with that!' he suddenly said, reaching out to take the spoon from Kon's hand.

'Why? Do you think you can do better than "The Mighty Lion Hero"'? The mod-soul danced away from him, not letting him take the spoon. 'I don't think so!'

'Give me that you!' Ichigo made a wild grab for him, but the plushy jumped out of reach at the last second, the result being that Ichigo fell across the table, into the violet pool... Kon laughed mercilessly.

'Aaa! Now look what you've done, you idiotic stuffed animal!'

'Ha-ha! You know that color really matches you, Strawberry! And besides, you are just jealous, because I would make a far better father than you!'

Kon didn't really mean anything by saying that, he was just trying to annoy the soul reaper out of habit. On a usual day this comment would only have earned him a glare, or some half hearted promise of beating out of stuffing. Usually Orihime's presence in itself was enough to ensure Ichigo's good mood and non-violence... So Kon was really taken by surprise, when he felt two large hands grip his throat so tightly that he could hardly breath, followed by a glare that would put any common hollow to shame.

'Gah... I... chi... Can't... breath!' the poor mod-soul choked.

'Ichigo!' cried out Orihime shocked.

He let go of Kon immediately. As soon as the mod-soul was free, he went and hid himself behind Orihime's skirt, peering out from behind like a shy little boy and crying false waterfall of tears.

'Oh! Did you see that? He hurt me, he really did! Please protect me, Orihime-chan! Don't let him hurt poor Kon!' he burried his tear-soaked face in the hem of her skirt, but smiled up mischievously at Ichigo when she wasn't looking. Orihime patted the plushy's head consolingly.

'I'm sorry, Kon!' Ichigo said through gritted teeth, while a vein was popping on his forehead. 'I'm sorry!' he repeated, now turning to look at Orihime. 'I'm just a little edgy today, that's all... worried about... work staff...'

'Work staff? Is it serious? Do you want to talk about it? she asked kindly.

'No!... I mean it's just stupid... forget it...' he smiled at her in a way that he meant to be reassuring.

Seeing that smile Orihime's heart was squeezed with a sudden anxiety. She knew that smile well, though she haven't seen it for quite a while now...

Ichigo had a sudden urge to bolt.

'Umm... I think I'll feel better after a shower...' he stood up. 'Thanks for the dinner, Orihime!'

This took her completely by surprise. 'But you hardly ate anything...' She called after him, but he was already halfway up the stairs. Her eyes followed him go, full of concern.

'What's up with him?' she wondered aloud, not for Kon's benefit, but the mod-soul answered anyway.

'He's just being his same old grumpy self, that's what!'

Orihime was still watching the stairs, and whispered softly:

'No... he's not...'

It was late in the night, everything was dark. Ichigo went through the quiet house in his spirit form, silent as a ghost. He went to Sora's room, and stopped beside his cot, smiling down at his son, and listening to his breath. After some time he pulled the blanket further up the small body before leaving the room.

On his way, he passed Kon's cupboard and heard his loud, steady snores. He paused in the doorway of there room to look at Orihime's sleeping form once more. She looked peaceful. He wanted to kiss her, at least on the forehead, but was afraid of waking her. So he just sighed softly, before turning his back to the room, determined, and prepared to leave.

_Author's note: So, Ichigo's being his old dumb self again, wanting to solve everything on his own... Will he realize his mistake in time?_

_Special note to nypsy: I almost always answered your reviews so far, but did you ever got my letters? Something you wrote in your last tells me you didn't. Is it my fault, or your e-mail account's? _


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note: Hi! Here is an other long chapter, and quite angsty... I know there are probably still a lot grammar mistakes in this one, and maybe even a few confused words, but I've already read it through for about a hundred times, so just please ignore it for now!_

Chapter 6

_**'… save... you... I will save you!'**_

_Above the dome of Las Notches, where the rays of the fake sun could not reach it was constantly night. Ichigo was flying amongst the huge pillars, searching and searching, fearing he'd be too late. Orihime's spiritual pressure seemed faint..._

_**'… I'll protect you from now on...'**_

_Finally he spotted the two figures. He speed up towards them, fast like an eagle diving for it's pray. Ulquiorra's eyes widened as he saw him approach. Seeing this, Ichigo smiled grimly and satisfied behind his mask. _

_**'… so that next time...'**_

_But then Orihime turned in his direction, and he saw that her eyes were full of fear. A fear that was not there a moment ago, when she was talking to the espada... _

_**'… will save...'**_

_That fear was created by the site of him..._

_'**… I will definitely protect you...****'**_

_Ulquiorra grabbed her, and pushed her behind himself, shielding her from him with his body. Orihime was holding on to him, her whole body trembling. Ichigo paused in mid air, shocked, confused and hurt. _

_**'… save you...'**_

_Anger, hot pure anger shot through his veins, and an animalistic roar escaped his chest. _

_'Go away!' Ulquiorra told him in a cold voice. 'This woman belongs to me now...' he stated, and pulled her into his arms. She didn't protest, only closed her eyes, and hid her face in the espada's robes._

_Ichigo wanted to cry out her name, but all that came out was an other roar. _

_'**… you...'**_

_He roared again in frustration and felt hot moisture slowly go down against his mask. _

_Ulquiorra looked up to meet his eyes. _

_'Told you I'll show you true despair...'_

_Ichigo lifted his hands in Orihime's direction with longing, but she seemed to float away from him, darkness swallowing up the whole scene, until all he could see was his extended hand, reaching out to nothing..._

_**'… you... I love you!'**_

'Ichigooooooooooooo!'

Suddenly a sharp pain brought him back. Physical pain was really welcome now, he was even kind of glad for it. He opened his eyes, to bright sunshine coming through the window.

It was a dream again.

He located the source of the pain coming from his nose. He reached there, and was shocked to find wetness, followed by the taste of blood.

'Man, you really are softened by marriage my boy! And this wasn't my best attack, even!' Came Isshin's fake annoyed voice from next to him. 'We certainly can't have that!' He went for an other punch, but this time Ichigo was able to dodge easily. 'That's the spirit!' roared his old man with delight.

'Give me a brake you freak!' Ichigo promptly punched his father down to the ground. Oh, how he hated this! It was so much better to awake to Orihime's softly calling voice, her sweet smell, and smile. He collected his thoughts fast. 'What's the time?' he asked.

'Don't worry, it's still early, just the crack of dawn. But you'd better hurry now, if you don't want to blow your act, and have her awake to finding your empty shell of a body instead of you...'

'Yeah, yeah.' he smoothed his black shikhansho out best he could: it was drenched in sweat from his nightmare... He felt so tired, almost as if he hadn't slept at all. Which was almost true. He went to the window, and prepared to leave.

'You know you look like hell...' Isshin called after him. 'And I'm not talking about your nose!'

He paused. His eyes were on the ground. Cold, without any real determination shining in them. It was Thursday, the 11th day of his "exile".

'I have to get going...'

'Has Urahara been able to come up with anything yet?'

'No...' he answered bitterly.

'Ichigo...'

'Don't start it again... I don't have time now... See you this evening...'

'Always so stubborn...' said Isshin sadly and Ichigo jumped out of the open window.

As Ichigo rushed home, he tried to calm himself down. Damn that Ulquiorra! No matter that he had defeated him so bad he literally turned into ashes, he still kept pestering him in his dreams! Now how was that fair?

And his father! Always taking advantage of his vulnerable state! He bet he really had meant this punch to hurt, he was so overall annoyed with him right now about his determination of leaving Orihime out, and solving the whole "inner world problem" without her. They had a serious conversation about it only a few days back. Isshin couldn't understand his motives at all. He had tried to explain his feelings to him:

_'Look... You don't know how it feels! None of you do! Well, maybe Shinji and the others do, but they are dead, so that's still not the same thing! You never had a hollow inside of you! Can you possibly imagine how frightening it is, that some of your actions, for which you're responsible for, are totally out of your control?It's bad enough that if I don't pay attention he can come out and take me over, and hurt people! I don't need anyone going in there, where he has free reign, least of all Orihime! Did I ever tell you that I once almost killed Ishida, while he controlled? Oh, yeah, and Orihime watched that happen right from the sidelines! She could have been hurt also! I'm not letting her anywhere near my hollow ever again!'_

Yes, he was stubborn! Stubborn, because he remained confident that he was doing the right thing... He had to admit though that doing the right thing had never been so fucking difficult before, but what did it matter if he suffered a little, if in exchange Orihime remained happy, peaceful, and most importantly: safe?

Since his conversation with Urahara and his Dad, he worked out a daily routine that worked well, and ensured that Orihime remained oblivious of anything going on. He went to the Urahara Shop after work every day. Then he went home for a few hours, and as soon as Orihime fell asleep he left his body behind to roam the streets of Karakura as a soul reaper, occasionally resting a few hours in the Kurosaki Clinic. He returned every morning, to leave for work early... It was tiring, but he was only doing his duty trying to protect Orihime.

The technical side of it worked well – once started, the lies seemed to fall more and more easily from his lips, until he could lie straight to her face without even a faint blush... But this didn't mean that the remorse and anxiety wasn't there... As a cause he suffered. The nights were a torment. Today's nightmare was really just a bit heavier than usual... if he could sleep at all that is... And the days were no better. They've been together with Orihime ever since the end of High School (there relationship was so developed by the time they graduated, that he practically moved to her apartment as soon as school was over).

Since then, they've never been apart for more than a few days. And there was a very good reason why: they simply functioned better together. He didn't feel whole without her. He felt lost without his guiding star to lead him in this life.

And it was amazing that it was the little things he was missing right now, more than anything... Her laughter, her smiles, humming of crazy made-up songs, red been paste on a piece of toast...

And his son... he hardly had seen him over this two weeks, except for being asleep...

He made a promise to himself, that once they get over this disturbing business, he'll take his family somewhere nice, for a long vacation, where they could be together, just the 3 of them. Orihime liked the sea...

But – and the thought bit into his heart – what if they were unable to sort this out...? What if something happened? He felt so helpless... everything was his fault! He was still unable to reach Zangetsu, or the cursed hollow... Why, it was above him, they were always there in the past (not counting his 17 month of power-loss) to annoy the hell out of him, and now, when he actually needed answers from them they disappeared! He still felt them to be there, he had no trouble turning into reaper form, or even hollowfy, his powers were obedient at the moment, but unreachable... It made him suspicious. Silence from his hollow could mean nothing good... And, when he concentrated hard, he felt that his hollow was really in a good mood... no surprises there, as his sufferings always lifted the monster's spirit, being the twisted little pervert it was...

He was starting to get pretty much irritated with the famous Hat-and-cloaks too. '_I'm working on it!'_ was the only answer he always got from Urahara, when asking him about there next move. The shopkeeper had tried out a few methods for enabling Ichigo to make contact with his zanpakuto spirit, but nothing worked. They had started with the one they used with Yoruichi in Soul Society, but the strange doll just burst to pieces the moment Ichigo stabbed it with Zangetsu. Then Urahara had made him drink some disgusting potions, that tasted rotten and burned his mouth, Tessai had shoot him through with several kido, Ururu had tried a ridiculous hypnotizing thing, and after that they had made him repaint the shop's front door, though he doubted very much that this last one was actually meant to be a success...

Thankfully Yoruichi arrived too, and he was working with her on better holding back his spiritual pressure. At least he was making a small progress with that, though he hated the whole thing. She approached him slowly, again and again with a flowery looking thing in her hand, which exploded when encountering too much spiritual pressure. According to Yoruichi, he should be able to even touch it, but so far his record was 5 meters... He just couldn't do it! It was like teaching a dog not to wave it's tail... It went against his nature. The only thing that kept him try again and again was that he continuously reminded himself, that he was doing it for his family.

At least the weekend was coming, and he made plans to visit Yuzu and Karin (they were studying at a University in a bigger town). That was an innocent enough reason to be far from Orihime, and it will be nice to see his sisters. Also, he asked Tatsuki to stay over, so he was not leaving his wife completely alone.

But what he will do next week, he couldn't even imagine. If Urahara's not able to come up with something soon he was sure he would brake from the strain. But still there was hope in him. A few days ago he had the courage to ask Orihime about her dreams, and she told him she didn't have a single one since the one during which he woke her up, 11 days ago. This at least told him that his sufferings were not futile. And this was the only thing he needed to know...

Late in the evening the same day, Orihime was home alone. She long ago put Sora to sleep, and now sat in the half lit living room, watching some idiotic soap-opera on TV for something to do. She nested herself in one of the armchairs with a pillow and a blanket, from where she could see both the TV and there front door, and her eyes wandered between the two. The clock on the wall told her that it was almost midnight now.

Ichigo was still not home... Orihime thought about the last two weeks, and the unexplainable changes in her husband's behavior.

He's mood changed... He smiled less and his scowl appeared more frequently. And she knew him well enough now to tell that something was worrying Ichigo... But he wouldn't talk about it, even though Orihime asked openly at least two times. He would just reassure her, that nothing was wrong.

He came home later and later every day... He told her he was behind with his paperwork, and needed to work overtime. Of course that was understandable, but there were other signs... Like the fact that when he was home he hardly talked to her at all. When he did, he was still kind and loving, just a bit more distant than usual...

Orihime didn't know what to think. Maybe she did something to offend him? She didn't know about anything, but she just couldn't shake off the feeling, that somehow she's the cause of all his strange behavior. Of course she remembered telling him about her returning dream – only dimly, because she really was half asleep the time - but she just couldn't see how that could be connected to everything.

She found him gone in the middle of the night several times, even though she was sure his badge didn't signal a hollow attack... What could this all mean? Is something going on – soul reaper troubles – of which he doesn't want her to know about? Why? Does he still think she's so weak, that it's better if she doesn't even know? This hurt a little... But not so much as the alternative...

Though her heart protested, a wicked little voice inside was telling her that maybe it's not connected to being a soul reaper at all... Maybe he just wanted a little freedom... Maybe there everyday life, being a husband and a father were not so exciting to him any more as in the beginning... He was a man, at the height of his powers after all... Maybe she was just not good enough for him...

Self-confidence was never one of Orihime's strong points. Ichigo was the one who always gave her strength, who always protected her, even from herself, and ensured her confidence with his steady love... But now, all her past low-thinking of herself resurfaced...

She didn't know what to do. She was sad, and felt herself a little lost... It didn't help the situation, that she was home alone almost all day with Sora, and had a lot of free time wondering about all of this... and just waiting for him to finally come home...

Usually, when she had trouble, or felt lonely, she would call her friends, and tell them all about it. After all she had magnificent friends: Tatsuki was almost like a sister, and Rukia was always happy to help, but this was a different matter. She felt that this was a matter she can share with no-one...

The soap-opera was still going on in the background, and suddenly her attention was caught, as the main actress was having an over-emotional monolog about her misery, because her boyfriend cheated on her.

'… oh Ricardo! How could you do this to me? I was blind! Blind not to see it before! You were with her again, weren't you? You come home late...'

Orihime squeaked, and tried to find the remote in the darkness. Her desperate search got the blanket twisted all around herself, and her delightful sigh when she found it turned into a cry, as she suddenly fell out from the armchair, and landed on the floor like a huge caterpillar.

'Tell me... is she pretty? Is she's prettier than me?' the soap-opera girl continued.

Orihime untangled herself with some difficulty, and were finally able to turn of the TV, making the actress's tearful face and distressed voice disappear.

'Few! That's better!' she was actually smiling revealed. But then her face clouded over. _'I wish turning off my own thoughts were just as easy...'_ She sat back on the edge of the chair. The room was silent and dark now.

She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, when suddenly heard the long awaited sound of a key turning inside the lock. Ichigo stepped in. He paused in the hall. The light of the single lit lamp fell on his face, so Orihime could fully observe him, while she was still in the darkness.

He looked so tired... even worn out. His shoulders were bent, and there were bags under his eyes. Orihime just looked and looked, while he also remained still, oblivious to her inspection. Seeing him like this, Orihime suddenly decided, that all her worries and all her fears really meant nothing...

She went to him silently and just embraced him fiercely. He was startled by finding her still up, but as her arms found there way around him, he swallowed back every question or remark he was about to make, and just hugged her back.

Early the next day, Orihime approached the Urahara shop, pushing Sora's pushchair before her. As she rounded the corner, her eyes narrowed uncharacteristically. She could have sworn that for an instant she felt Ichigo's spiritual pressure, but there was nothing now. Maybe he was here sooner, and already left. This didn't bother her, as she wanted to speak with the shopkeeper now. Approaching, she saw that she needn't even go inside, because Urahara was standing before the entrance, almost as if waiting for her.

'Good morning, Urahara-san.' she said, not quite in her natural cheery manner. Her beautiful face looked determined.

'Why hello there my dear Orihime-chan! What can I do for you today!' Hat-and-cloaks said in his usual annoying singsong voice. 'Do come inside!'

'No, thank you, Urahara-san, I'll only take up a little of your time! I only came here to ask you a question...' Her eyes now dropped to the floor. '… a question about Ichigo.'

Urahara thought that this conversation was taking a dangerous rout, and decided to play dumb.

'A question? About Ichigo?'

'Yes.'

'Well what ever it is, I'm sure you can ask him about it...'

She lifted her gaze, and cut across him with a strong voice.

'Urahara-san! I know something is going on... and he doesn't want me to know... tell me... I just need to know this one thing... Will he be all right?'

Finally, that question got through the twisted scientist's always composed mask! He didn't expect this! Distress and something else – guilt maybe? - showed on his face for just an instant, before years and years of practice swiftly helped him compose himself. So when he replied it was in his usual offhand voice.

'Of course... You know him... He can take care of himself...' but then his eyes narrowed in the shadow of his hat. '...and those dear to him...' he added.

Orihime looked at him intensely for a minute, before turning away. She now looked sad, her determination dimmed. She slowly turned and was already leaving when she answered back.

'Thank you! That's all I need to know...'

'Take care, Orihime-chan!'

Urahara watched her go, and when she disappeared behind the corner, and he was sure she was gone, he clicked his fingers together on his right hand, and Ichigo fell out from the kido barrier in mid air, where he had placed him when they felt Orihime approach. Ichigo remained crouched down, so he couldn't see his face. Of course he saw and heard everything.

'That's one amazing woman... really...' Urahara said.

Ichigo didn't need the shopkeeper to tell him this.

'I will tell her, Urahara... I've had enough of this. Today, when I'm going home, I'm gonna tell her...'

_Author's Note: I don't know if I'm really happy with how this chapter turned out. I considered several possibilities for showing the pair's feelings, including making it "drabbles-stiled", with detached little scenes, stretching over the 11 days... But I also wanted to show an other dream of Ichigo, so this is the final draft. _

_Two good news:_

_1.) I won't leave Ichigo and Orihime in there funks for long...Gripping fights are coming :-)!_

_2.) As I made a good progress with the story over the weekend, I'll probably be able to treat you to some faster updates, so stay tuned!_

_Review? Review!_


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

'Put him down, already! My God! That's no way to hold a baby!' Rukia exclaimed.

Tattooed eyebrows raised high confusedly as an answer. 'I didn't know you can hold a baby wrong...'

Renji held Sora up by the back of his robes, examining him, like a rare specimen. The little boy was hanging down like a stack of potatoes with his uncertain eyes on the not so average face of the soul reaper.

'Idiot! You'll make him cry!'

'Yes, Midget! Because you have so much experience with babies!' He now placed his hands under the boy's armpits, but still kept him at arm's distance. Rukia came over to take Sora out of his inexperienced hands. She cradled the baby in her arms, smiling affectionately at him.

'Don't mind the scary, grumpy, insensitive old man, my little bunny!' She brushed her nose against his, making him giggle and wave enthusiastically with his hands. 'He just thinks that wearing that white Captain's coat makes him better in everything!'

Renji watched Rukia with his mouth open, and for once her criticism didn't even reach his ears... She had a so tender expression on her face... Renji found he couldn't tear his eyes away from her.

'It's really nice of you to visit!' Orihime entered the room, with a tray laden with her home made cookies, which she put down on the small table before them. 'It's been ages since we saw you, Renji-kun! I know you must have been busy with you're Captain's duties, but we missed you so much!'

'Thanks Orihime! It's really nice of you to say so...'

'I think last time you visited was after Sora was born... and now he's almost walking!' Orihime looked fondly at her son. Rukia put him down next to the huge purple bunny she just chose to add to his collection of plushies. He seamed to like it's ears: he could hold them in his little palms easily, pull on them and chew on them...

'He grows so fast!' Rukia sighed.

'Fast? He still looks tiny to me!' said Renji. Rukia gave him an ugly look, but he continued anyway. 'I still have trouble believing that you two are actually married so early, let alone having a baby... I can't imagine grumpy, reckless Ichigo as a father... Where is he anyway?'

'Oh, I'm sure he'll arrive soon...'

Rukia noticed the uncertainty in her voice, and looked at her questioningly. Orihime colored a little, and avoided her gaze as she added. 'He has quite a lot paperwork lately, and usually says in late...um...Cookies?'

As they helped themselves, Orihime's thoughts went back to broad on Ichigo, and her morning discourse with Urahara. At least now she knew that it was indeed soul reaper troubles that caused her husband to act weird. She was still sad, that Ichigo didn't confined in her about his problems, but told herself again and again, that he must have had a reason... That's why she made up her mind, that when Ichigo get's back, she's going to tell him that she knows something's going on, and reassure him that she's going to stand by him, no matter what, and will wait until he's ready to talk about it... This decision consoled her a grate deal.

Rukia's sudden outburst at Renji brought Orihime back from her revive.

'Baka! Put it away immediately! How could you leave it out like that?'

'Huh?'

'You're sword!'

Rukia pointed to Zabimaru lying on the couch. Sora apparently found the foreign object highly interesting... Renji quickly removed it from his grasp, with his cheeks flushing. The little boy started to cry. His mother came over, hugged him and said some shooting words to him, then managed to revert his interest back to the bunny pushy instead.

'I'm sorry, Orihime...'

'It's all right, Renji-kun. It's my fault, I wasn't paying attention.'

Renji now smiled widely down at Sora.

'So, he likes swords, does he? Who would have thought...?'

Suddenly, Rukia's and Renji's soul pagers began to ring. There faces showed confusion as they reached for there devices: they were here as visitors, not on a mission... it can't be an order! But as they draw the pagers out, the ringing stopped.

'What's this?... No line? What the hell...?' Renji stared blankly at his pager.

'Mine too... ' said Rukia with eyes wide.

Then they felt the spiritual pressure raise surrounding them. It was impossible at first to detect a source, as it seamed to come from all directions. Orihime went to Sora and picked him up into her arms immediately, and they all studied the pressure waves in silence.

'Five?' Renji asked finally.

Rukia shook her head. 'No. More. But the others are more far... '

They both drew there swords.

'What could they be?'

'Strong pressures... adjuchas or above... and I can sense several lower pressures too, that could be ordinary hollows.'

'Damn! What do you think, Rukia? I should go check out... will you stay with Orihime?'

'Of course! Be careful!'

He gave them a confident smile, before running out the front door.

'What does this mean? Five adjuchas? How? Is this some kind of invasion?' Orihime asked, shaking a little.

'I don't know... But don't worry... I'll protect you...' she smiled at her. 'It's my job, remember?'

Orihime smiled back at her timidly. Rukia went to the window and looked out, her fingers beating on the frame. Orihime went to the couch with Sora, and picked up a picture book at random to read for him from, but she was so distracted that when her mouth moved she could hardly tell what nursery rime she was reciting.

'The spiritual pressure level keeps rising... not good...' Rukia commented after a while.

'Ichigo's already fighting... I can feel it...' said Orihime, with her eyes in the distance.

'Yes... me too. He's hard to miss, even with all this spiritual pressure flowing...'

Orihime hugged her son close, taking comfort from the nearness of his warm little body. Her eyes kept reverting to her soul reaper friend by the window, and her thoughts were with Ichigo. She noticed when Rukia suddenly stilled.

'Fuck...' she said, and as she rarely swore in front of Orihime, she knew right away that something was very wrong.

'What is it? She asked, standing up and also nearing the window.

'No! Rukia answered, putting up a hand to stop her approach. 'Go back, and hide behind your shield!'

She did, and watched with apprehension from behind the yellow light as Rukia grabbed her sword more firmly. It was silent for a few heartbeats, then the house shook, as a huge clawed hand entered, braking the wall completely on one side. Rukia was in motion even before the dust cleared up. Orihime saw her strike the hollow in front with her first move, but more of them came up behind. Dark and heavy spiritual pressure was filling the air and Sora started to cry.

Rukia continued to fight, her brain working furiously even between her attacks. _'Damn! They must have sensed our spiritual pressure... we must feel like a real feast to them. Well... I'll give them a feast they'll never forget!'_

She already cut down three hollows: a giant bug looking one, a tall one with long neck and fangs coming out of it's mouth, and a really ugly one, that split out some disgusting smelling green liquid. They weren't any challenge, really. She lifted her eyes and looked around. She could hear screams and shouts not only from there street, but the surrounding ones as well. _'What ever is going on?' _She took out her soul pager again, but it was still blank. _'It really seems like the whole town is under attack! Soul Society should send some reinforcements soon...__'_

'What's this? A tasty little soul reaper!'

Rukia turned coolly to face this new hollow, who's spiritual pressure was clearly above the level of the ones she defeated before. He was most probably one of the adjuchas she sensed earlier. It's body was lizard-like, with 3 horns on the head, clawed hands, and a tail. He resembled most some illustration of dinosaurs from books... or a dragon from a fairy-tail.

'And the woman and the brat over there also smells delicious... I'm in luck today...'

'Guess again, Ugly!' said Rukia, charging at him. But the-dragon-hollow was fast, and used his claws to stop her thrust. She couldn't cut him.

'Rukia!' Orihime cried out, as one of those vivacious looking claws missed her only by inches.

Rukia used flash step, to get to the monster's back, and dealt a grate blow there. She almost cried out in victory, but then she saw that her sword hardly made any damage. The creature laughed.

'What's the matter? I thought that a sharper blade would go with such a fierce looking face! The scales on my back are hard like steal... You won't get away with a sneaky little attack like that with me!'

Rukia scowled.

'All right then... you asked for it... I'm gonna show you a real attack now... Dance! Sode-no Shirayuki!' She twirled her zanpakuto around, until it became all white, with a long white ribbon attached to it's hilt. Her eyes narrowed. 'First dance! White Moon!'

Ice began to form in a grate circle, spreading up the monster's legs. But just when she thought that she finally got him this time, the creature's mouth opened with a piercing roar, and a jet of flame burst forth. Cracking voices filled the air, as the ice melted and broke. Rukia didn't have time to recover, the creature was there at her side in the blink of an eye, and she felt his sharp teeth sank into her body deeply... She cried out in pain. The monster let her body fall to the ground. His sneering mouth was all red with her blood.

'That was a rather interesting display of power, soul reaper... too bad ice doesn't work on me, as I have the power of fire!' And he laughed.

Orihime watched horrified. She couldn't just sit there and watch! She had to do something! She put the crying Sora down into his playpen, and left her shield guarding it firmly, but she herself stepped out of it's protection. She gathered all the resolve she could muster and called out Tsubaki, aiming him at the adjucha. She managed to cut off one of it's legs. It fell backwards, out through the opening in the house's side, howling in rage. Orihime rushed to Rukia's side immediately, and cast her healing shield.

'Oh, Rukia!'

Her friend could only respond with coughs. Her breathing was heavy, and she was in grate pain... Orihime needed to concentrate, as it was a nasty wound: the creature's teeth tore a grate chunk out of her mid section. The wound started to close up.

Orihime didn't notice the beast returning. She felt only the claws piercing her skin, as it lifted her up in the air. She screamed.

_Author's Note: Poor Rukia! I always choose her to injure badly... but I bet you're all more concerned for Orihime! Am I right?_


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Ichigo was edgy all day due to his determination to finally confess everything to Orihime. The scene he witnessed from Urahara's kido barrier told him, that she was not totally oblivious to everything, as he thought her to be... He so screwed up! Now she's better off knowing the whole story, or who knows what conclusions she might jump into. He saw the hurt in her eyes, and felt himself the world's biggest bastard for causing her pain...

He spent half the day planing on how best to approach the subject, and what they should do after. He was still worried about her safety, but even Urahara admitted that there seems to be no point in going on like this, since they were getting nowhere. They agreed that Orihime and Ichigo should come over to the shop after there discussion... And than maybe she can make them wiser on a few points...

After that, he supposed he must continue staying away from her, since it seemed to help stop her dream-journeys into his inner world, but it would be all different, if she knows the cause of it... He would at least be able to call her on phone and tell her how much he's missing her...

When the clock finally announced it was 4 pm, he let out a sigh of relief. He picked his things up hastily, stuffed them in his bag, and departed for home, with a smile on his face. He just couldn't help being a little happy, even with all these worries... He would go home in time today... He will now have a chance to play a little with his son. God, how he missed that!

He was already on the street, when his soul pager began to ring. Cursing under his breath, he tried to free the little device from the bottom of his bag, but by the time he succeeded, the ringing already stopped. He looked at it confusedly: soul reaper phones never went flat, as long as there user's spiritual energy was close to supply them...

Then his substitute badge went haywire, screaming _'Hollow! Hollow!'_ loudly.

'Damn! Today of all days...!' he muttered angrily.

As he didn't have Kon with him, he looked swiftly around for a place to hide his body. There was a promising looking thick bush on one side of the street, and moments later, he already jumped out of it as a soul reaper.

He flew up to the nearest building-top, for a better view. His eyes widened in shock. All around town, signs of destruction could be seen. Clouds of dust rose high into the air, indicating buildings being crushed. And the unleashed spiritual pressure waves were flowing like crazy... Hollows. Lots of them... Shinji's dark words came back to the surface of his mind: it looked like the storm he was talking about had finally hit. Hueco Mundo was loose on Earth...

Also, there was something wrong with the sky... the normal blue had a strange green tint to it, and the air slightly shook above the city. Is there some kind of force there? A barrier, or a shield? Was this the reason why his soul pager didn't work?

Ichigo took a moment to study the pressure waves. He could feel several strong pressures, coming from separate directions, and also a lot smaller ones. He could also feel some of his friends. He saw the unmistakable blue lights of Quincy arrows above the northern region of the city. And he was pretty sure Chad was also there somewhere, fighting. He started to go south, in the general direction of his home, slashing down every hollow that came his way. He tried to feel out for Orihime, but it was hard to tell anything apart amongst all the spiritual pressures present.

As he passed the city emporium, he saw and heard frightened people filling out of it, screaming. The uproar was caused by not one, but several hollows fiercely attacking the building and everyone inside. As much as he wanted to go home fast to make sure his family was safe, he couldn't just ignore others being in immediate danger. He wasn't the representative of this whole town for nothing... He gritted his teeth, and changed his course to go to the rescue.

His sword slashed through the air, making hollow after hollow disappear slowly. But still there were more of them. Ichigo became irritated, and called out his bankai for the sheer speed boost of it... Now he was like a black wind, sweeping through the town.

He stopped when he heard his name being called.

'Ichigo!'

'Renji! Boy, I'm glad to see you! It's about time Soul Society sent someone! This whole place is a mess!'

His red haired soul reaper friend also had his bankai out, battling hard.

'As the matter of fact, I'm here by accident. Nobody sent us... Rukia and I were just thinking about paying a friendly visit to you... as if we could ever just visit you without ending up in the middle of some serious ass-kicking! I say, this town attracts far too much trouble for it's worth!'

'Ah!...You've got that right! Listen, I have to get home quickly to make sure Orihime and Sora are ok!'

'Don't worry! Rukia stayed with them!'

'Oh, that's good!' Ichigo said relived. While Orihime was quite capable of defending herself with her shield, and maybe even successfully fend off an attacker with Tsubaki, it would be unwise to let her fight alone, with also the baby to care for... He closed his eyes, and concentrated hard. It was tricky, but he could just make out both Orihime's and Rukia's pressures. He made up his mind.

'All right...' he said to Renji. 'Let's do a quick house-cleaning!'

Renji and Ichigo continued destroying hollows side by side. They were in the thick of it, when Ichigo suddenly felt Rukia's spiritual pressure waver...

'Rukia...' He whispered. He abandoned the battle without a second thought, and started running home. He used all the speed his bankai gave him, and extended his flash-steps as long as he could. Renji also felt Rukia's danger, but there was no way he could keep up with Ichigo.

'Shit!' he cursed as he watched his orange haired friend disappear. He went back to battling the hollows, taking his anger out on them.

_'Damn!__' _Ichigo thought as he ran._ '__Still not fast enough!' _

When he finally arrived at there house he drew in a sharp breath: it was in ruins, he could see into the living room through a large hole in the building's side. His eyes scanned the scene swiftly, there was no time to feel fear, or any kind of emotion. He saw yellow light, the working Rikka shields of Orihime, and he hoped very much that she's behind her Santen Kesshun with Sora.

But then he heard her scream. He couldn't help himself: all the protective instinct took hold of him and his mask materialized without being called... As he went inside, he saw the adjucha lifting Orihime up into the air.

'Orihime!'

She also saw him then, and cried out his name, raising her hand desperately in his direction.

'Ichigo!'

Despite her current predicament, and the sharp pain in her left shoulder, Orihime's dread quieted the instant she saw him. Even with his sinister mask on, the site of his beloved was enough to make her feel secure, and her heart was beating: _'He's here. Everything will be all right now...'_

Ichigo charged at the monster, ripping it's arm off with his first move. Orihime was falling to the ground, but he caught her easily with one hand, the other holding Tensa Zangetsu firmly. A well aimed black Getsuga Tensho was more than enough to finish the job, and the dragon-adjucha vanished. Ichigo removed his mask.

'It's all right Orihime! I'm here!' he told her, but when he looked down, he realized that she must have passed out.

'Orihime!'

Her body was limp in his arms. He lowered her gently to the ground, and looked around.

Both her healing and protective shields vanished when she fainted. Sora was crying loudly where she had left him, and Rukia made attempts at sitting up, though the Rikka didn't have enough time to heal her completely.

'About time you showed...' she scolded him grumpily. 'Is Orihime all right?'

'I think so... though there is a shallow wound on her shoulder...' he said with gritted teeth.

'But... are you sure? I can't really feel her spiritual pressure...'

'What are you talking about?' he asked her angrily. 'I can feel her just fine! That injury sure must have an affect on you, that's my guess...'

She opened her mouth to argue, but suddenly the air around then started to swirl, and a new figure materialized from thin air. Ichigo and Rukia both froze.

The newcomer had strong spiritual pressure, something close to an espada's. He also wore the same kind of clothes: white with black at the edges, and a zanpakuto looking sword was dangling from his side. He had the form of a human, but his white mask covered all his face at the front, it wasn't cracked. And it had vivid green markings, that was quite unusual. In fact – as Rukia noted to herself – the only hollow mask with markings she ever saw beside this one was Ichigo's...

'Who the hell are you?' asked Ichigo menacingly, while positioning himself for better be able to protect all the others present.

'Are you Ichigo Kurosaki?' the stranger replied with a question. His voice was eerie, slightly reverberating.

'I am.'

'Good.' replied the other. 'I'm Hogai Sawamura. Pleased to meet you!'

The newcomer pulled out his sword, and attacked Ichigo without further ado. He was prepared to counter him, but was taken aback by the attack's force. He had to step out of line, and there swords clashed into the ground next to him. He took the second blow more seriously, and found that he could hold this opponent all right if he gives all his energy into it. It was certainly a long time ago since he had to do that... To fight with all he's got. After almost two weeks of having Yoruichi continuously snap at him things like '_Still too much, Ichigo! Can't you hold back more?' _the feeling was highly satisfying. He would have almost found this battle welcome, had it not been for the fact, that his family was in danger.

The stranger told him his name, but that did not make Ichigo any wiser on who, or what this man was before him. '_Is he a visored?__' _he thought._'__His mask is similar to mine... And the spiritual pressure... Maybe he's the one Haichi was able to sense? And his force... strong, but I can still hold him, though he has a mask on, and I don't!'_

'Are you the one behind all of this?' he asked the masked stranger amidst a fierce clash. 'Why do you invade our town? What do you want?'

'Yes, it was me who led the hollow army here... Is that enough reason for you to fight me? I heard that you were quite attached to this town, were you not? Just forget the questions and fight! Fight me!'

As the battle continued, Ichigo felt his opponent's sword. It spoke of rage and killer instinct.

Behind them, Rukia crawled to Orihime's side, and felt her pulse. She tried to make her come back by patting her cheek lightly, but it didn't work. Ichigo noticed this from the corner of his eyes, and uneasiness began to grow inside him. He tried to repress it in order to concentrate to the fight. But Sora's crying pressed painfully against his eardrums all the time, and that was hard to tune out...

'I know you by reputation, and I think your not giving everything you've got!' Sawamura accused Ichigo. 'Maybe I can give you a bit more incentive!' and as he said that, a violet cero started forming on one of his palms. Ichigo donned his mask right away, and countered the cero with an other black Getsuga. The explosion of the colliding beams shook the already ruined building, and parts of the ceiling came down. Ichigo put himself above Orihime, shielding her with his body. Rukia jumped out of harms way, but Sora was trapped in his playpen.

'No!' Ichigo shouted, lifting a hand in his direction, and as he did, he saw a red shield materialize above the little boy. It was kind of like a Rikka shield, but it's feeling was different. And Orihime was still out cold. Ichigo didn't know how the shield got there, but it did it's job: it protected Sora from harm. He let out a sigh of relief.

'What ever...' Rukia was looking at the shield with confusion.

As Ichigo looked over to his opponent again, he saw that a new hollow appeared behind him, bowing like a servant before his master.

'My Lord, we are ready!' this new hollow said to Sawamura. 'You told me to notify you immediately when we have the connection!'

'Right!' he answered. Then he turned his masked face to look at Ichigo again, who was still crouching over Orihime. 'Ichigo Kurosaki... maybe next time...' he said, before disappearing just as unexpectedly as he came.

'Bastard!' fumed Ichigo frutilely.

'Ichigo! Rukia!'

Ichigo felt new spiritual pressures approaching. Ishida and Renji arrived at the house moments later.

'Kurosaki!' came Uryu's voice. 'Where is Orihime?'

'Right here! Can't you see, Idiot!'

Uryu looked down to him confusedly.

'Yes, but I can't feel her... like a wail is hiding her spiritual pressure...'

Ichigo's eyes became round with surprise, then he closed them, apparently concentrating on something. The next moment he began swearing so loudly and roughly that even Renji jumped up. But the others didn't have time to question Ichigo further about what's going on, because new hollows arrived at the scene, and started attacking the already ruined building.

Ichigo looked up with a pained expression to see Uryu, Renji and Rukia already fighting.

'Sorry Guys...' he said, though quite sure they wouldn't be able to hear him. 'I have to leave this mess to you now... I have bigger problems to take care of...'

And he took up Orihime in one arm, and went to Sora, and picked him up in the other, and flash stepped away.

_Author's notes: I'd like to thank you all, for keeping up with my story! I hope you liked this chapter._

_Questions for you to consider:_

_What really happened to Orihime?_

_Where did that red shield come from?_

_Who is this new villain, and what does he want?_

_Bonus points to anyone who guesses right! :-)_


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's notes: Buckle your seat-belts! This will be a rough ride... As everybody guessed correctly Orihime entered Ichi's world again..._

Chapter 9

Orihime opened her eyes, and looked around herself. She recognized the place right away from her dreams, that strange 90 degrees turned world and started to wonder how she got there. Did she just fall asleep during the battle? That was highly unlikely, even for a daydreamer like her... Passed out more likely. But she was only barely hurt, wasn't she?

She had to wake up now! Find a way out of here!

As she looked around herself she realized, that something was different about the world around her. The clouds on the sky were a thick dark blanket now, covering all blue from sight. Thin yellow arrows of lightning illuminated the scene from time to time. Seemed like a storm was coming, but no sound of thunder reached her yet.

'Orihime...!'

She jumped up at the unexpected half familiar voice coming right from behind her. It was so much clearer than ever before!

'So, am I finally able to get to you?'

She turned slowly, trembling a little.

'… my Hime!'

She felt a cold hand grab her wrist, and found her gaze locked by the intensive stair of a pair of golden-black eyes... She squeaked, and jumped as far away from the creature before her as his grabbing hand allowed. Her eyes widened to there full extent as she took in the rest of his appearance.

A white shikansho... tall figure... pail white skin... familiar features... spiky hair – though not orange...

'What's the matter?' he said with a chuckle. 'You seem speechless for some reason...' his twinkling eyes and sneering mouth showed how much he enjoyed the situation. This expression was so out of place on those features...

'Who are you?' she asked with trembling voice.

'Oh come on! You know me! We've met before!'

And as she looked into those golden-black eyes, she knew it was true... Memories came back to her, uncalled for, triggered not only by those eyes boring into hers now, but by the feel of his whole presence. Sogyoku hill... where she felt it first. Hueco Mundo... the fight with Grimmjaw... that was when she saw it first. And above the dome of Las Notches... the transformation... Hollow!

The creature saw comprehension dawn on her face, and his blue tongue licked his lips at the sight of her trembling form.

'Ah... Hime! I've been waiting for you for so long!' He yanked her closer to himself again, and was whispering intimately in her ear. 'I've been in this world for ages, and the clouds were always there, but no Sun... until you came... I felt your growing presence in this world as you became more and more attuned with us... but I just couldn't reach you! Kingy is so protective of you... But when he despairs I become stronger... like right now.'

Orihime could hardly follow what the hollow was saying. She was scared and confused. Ichigo had never gone into details explaining to her about his meetings and fights with his other self. She never expected the hollow to take on a form so much like him... She had always thought about the hollow as a monster. Most commonly with horns and red fur...

'What do you want from me?' she asked, her voice shaky.

A dark chuckle answered her. 'Nothing too horrible, I promise! I wouldn't hurt my Hime! Now just relax!'

He slowly raised his other hand to her face. As he touched her Orihime suddenly felt her knees buckle. The creature that so resembled her husband caught her, and held her up.

_'What's happening to me? It's like my strength is disappearing... like he's sucking it out of me...' _Her vision became blurry.

Suddenly she felt the draining sensation leave her. When she finally had strength to look up, she saw that the hollow's hand was lifted off her face by someone else...

'That's quite enough!'

'Do you mind?' the hollow's voice was irritated. 'Get the hell out of here Tensa! I was enjoying that!'

Orihime saw a young man, a stranger to her, with piercing blue eyes and black hair that fell to his shoulders.

'Of course you were. But I can't let you do this... at least not like this!' he told the hollow with a solemn voice.

'Why? Want to join in?' it taunted him back. His eyes went back to Orihime. 'Ah...it was so good! And it was only a nibble!'

Hearing this, Orihime found her strength at last, and with one sudden move she freed herself from him completely and stumbled a few steps away. The hollow let her go away for now, following her only with his burning glare.

'We should make this easier for her...' The black haired man said.

'… where's the fun in that?'

The two man watched Orihime slowly back away from them. She stumbled, and fell down.

'Is this really her? Such a fragile thing... ' the man named Tensa commented. He stepped forward, and Orihime saw the sword sheathed on his side. She gasped. The man followed her gaze, and draw out the weapon to show it to her fully.

'Let me introduce myself! I'm Tensa Zangetsu.'

'...Zangetsu...' she said slowly, as though tasting the name. 'Then... that must mean...'

'Yes. This is his inner world.'

'His... as Ichigo's?'

'Yes, he's Majesty the King!' sneered the hollow with a mock bow.

Tensa was watching the clouds on the vertical sky getting darker by the minute.

'Rain is coming...' He and the hollow looked at each other.

'Despair...' Tensa said.

'Despair.' The hollow agreed.

Tensa now turned towards Orihime who stood up again, and was slowly edging away.

'Can you tell me, why is it that he despairs in the middle of a battle? When he should put all his strength into fighting?'

Orihime quit her attempts at distancing herself from them. She momentary forgot to be afraid, because that question really struck a nerve. _'That's right... I'm a burden again to Ichigo... he's concerned for me, when he should focus on the fight at hand... __because I'm weak...' _Tears stung in the corners of her eyes, but she kept them back for now.

'… because of me.'

'Can't hear you!'

'It's because of me.' She repeated with more force.

'I see...' Those blue eyes held her gaze for a second, and she felt the power that was behind them. Tensa continued. 'You know, I'm just a spirit of a zanpakuto, I really don't know anything about love and emotions... and it's really not my business. But if something weakens him... than it is my business...'

Orihime hung her head, and a single tear escaped her at hearing that she weakened Ichigo. The hollow laughed.

'Congrats, Tensa! It turns out you hurt her more than anything I did!'

Tensa ignored him, and had a contemplating look on his face, as though wandering about what to say next.

'Let me ask you something...Why are you here?'

Orihime looked up at him confused.

'Eh?... I don't even know how I got here... It's not like I want to be here... I didn't even know where "here" was until just now...'

'This inner world of his is where he pulls his strength from. I thought that was why you were here. To give him your strength.'

Orihime just opened and closed her mouth like a fish on shore.

'Me... give him...'

What Tensa Zangetsu said didn't even have time to sink in, when she suddenly felt an odd sensation, and fell back to the building's side which served as a floor. This sensation was similar to the one she felt earlier, when the hollow touched her, but this time, he was still standing a grate distance away. Tensa didn't move also. Instead the two men were looking up at the sky again, watching something that was hidden from her eyes. Then she heard the hollow laugh.

'What do you know? The saint Ichigo!... He got the hang of it real fast! I knew how it would be in the end!'

'He doesn't know what he's doing yet...' Tensa replied. 'But he will figure out soon... And this time you won't be able to hide...'

'And do you think I should shake in fear? I want him to find out! I'm tired of this hide and seek anyway...' His malicious grin flashed on Orihime, who just managed to struggle to stand up once again. 'Sorry, Hime! I really enjoyed playing with you, but it seems we're out of time... So no more fooling around!'

Next moment the hollow moved, and was right there again, holding her tight. She struggled, but this time she couldn't brake free. She looked at the other man pleadingly, but he just watched.

'You love him, right?' the owner of those merciless golden-black eyes told her.

She cringed at hearing such a thing uttered in such a cold and sneering voice.

'And you want to love him for ever and ever... You needn't answer... You being in this world shows how much you want to be close to him... What if I can give you all that? Forever close to him... safe here in his inner world...'

Orihime was afraid. She tried desperately to think, but her mind seamed numb, and the hollows words slowly sank into her like he wrote then there in indelible ink.

'Right now he's inside a fierce battle... Don't you want to help? Hime! I can't read minds, but some of your thoughts I have seen... This is all you've ever wanted... to be able to help him...'

Then there was that sensation again, like she was drained...

'Just think about it... giving your potential over to be guided by his superior powers! There would be nothing he couldn't do! No limits! Like a god! You would never have to fear for him again!'

She felt her energy being sucked away by the hollow, but this time she didn't fight it... it was a strangely familiar feeling... giving in... submitting... acceptance. A man and a woman... and he really did resemble her Ichigo... All the fear vanished. She felt the creature pulling her unresisting body closer and closer.

But it only lasted a minute. Suddenly she felt fear again. She didn't know, but it was her primary fear activated... to preserve herself above all. She struggled in vain with the hollows hold on her, who only smiled broadly.

Orihime suddenly felt a fierce wave of wind wash through her, and before she had time to even blink, she felt herself thorn out of the hollow's arms, and flying through the air. She came to a rest at a nice distance from him, inside an other set of arms. Her wrists were stringing where they were yanked out of the hollows grasp.

'Sorry to butt in...' Ichigo's voice was cold like steal. 'Am I interrupting something?'

Orihime felt the warmth of his skin, and saw the wild orange of his fiery hair. She gripped his clothes tightly.

'Ichigo...' She breathed out his name. She was still trembling, and it didn't help the situation that for once Ichigo's brown eyes were just as fierce as his hollow's black ones were before. He was very-very angry... only Orihime didn't know if that anger was directed towards the creature opposite them or towards herself...

The hollow also looked angry for a moment, but when he saw Ichigo's deathly glare he laughed.

'What's the matter? You're not jealous are you? It's not like I haven't held her before... You know I was there with you in every kiss, in every touch...'

Now it was Ichigo's turn to tremble, but it was with anger. Orihime winced, as he was holding her so tight it almost hurt.

'… after all it's only in this world that we exist as separate beings...'

'You...did you think I wouldn't find her here?'

'Well... it does amaze me...'

Ichigo tried to compose himself before turning to his wife. 'Orihime... are you all right?'

'Yes...'

He embraced her, more gently this time, and as he did so Orihime felt the first drop of rain on her face.

'I'm going to take you back right away, just wait a second until I settle things with that bastard...' He said relishing her, and lifting his sword. More and more raindrops came falling down, until it started to rain in earnest.

'Now, now, Kingy... Do you really want to fight with her here?'

'I just want to make something perfectly clear!' Ichigo shouted over the sounds of the storm. 'If anything ever happens to Orihime... if you'll so much as touch her again... there will be nowhere for you to hide! I'll come and find you, even if I have to carve this whole place up completely!'

The hollow narrowed his eyes.

'You don't understand do you? It's all you're fault you know... The Queen is in no danger in the King's realm as long as he remains strong! But you despaired... I got stronger...The fact that you weren't able to call me out proves this...'

Ichigo was thinking hard.

'So you're saying, that even if she comes here, you can't reach her, as long as I'm in control?'

'Hmmm... That's more or less true, I guess...'

'More or less...?' Ichigo's voice shook with repressed anger. He wanted answers, and was in no mood to play riddles.

'Well, you see, she could want me to get to her...' a huge grin spread across the hollow's face. 'Isn't that right my Hime? I know I'm simply irresistible!'

'You son of a... ' anger took Ichigo over for a moment, and black spiritual pressure was surging from his sword, as he took up an attacking stance. The hollow did the same opposite him, still grinning. But before both could launch themselves forward, a triangular santen kesshun shield erupted between them. Both turned there heads towards Orihime, wearing identical indignant looks that said quite clearly: _'Don't interfere!'_

Orihime was frightened, but her resolve never shook. The shield remained in place... Watching two Ichigo's fight would be more than she could bare...

Tensa Zangetsu came over to her. Ichido's hand twitched seeing there closeness, but he remained in place, facing the hollow. Tensa's blue eyes bored deeply into Orihime's. She didn't know what he was searching for, and what did he find, but after a few moments he turned.

'She's right... Let's postpone this fight for now...' he raised his hand, and the zanpakuto the hollow was holding vanished in a wave of smoke. Orihime sighed, and let her shield disappear.

'Ichigo!' Tensa called out to him seriously. 'Take her back now... But remember this! That woman has the power to both making you strong and making you weak. Just make sure it's the former... I already told you before... I'm your power. I'm not interested in what you want to protect. My only concern is you!'

'And I certainly won't serve a weakling!' the hollow added.

Ichigo looked like he was ready to explode, but Orihime now came over, and held his hand, and this brought him back to his senses. He took her up into his arms, and prepared to leave, when the hollow spoke again.

'Before you go, my Hime! One more thing... I'll be patient... I know you'll come to me someday... when the time will come, that you'll have no other choice...'

_Author's Notes: So, finally: Ichi, Hichi (though I'm only calling him that off-story) and Orihime all together! With Tensa as the chaperon, lol!_

_How did you like it? Was everything clear? I sometimes feel that some of my thoughts actually remain in my head, and never reach the paper/keyboard... Please review!  
_


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Notes: I realize that this chapter is a bit rushed at some points, but I'm posting it now anyway, as I will be away for the remaining of the week, and will have no more chance to work on it. _

_You will now finally found out some of the answers to the questions I asked you a chapter ago..._

_I was a little discouraged by the fact that last chapter only ever got one review (thanks again, himelove 22), because I worked really hard on it, and would have enjoyed some feedback. So be nice to me, and don't hold back from hitting the keyboard this time!_

Chapter 10

Orihime opened her eyes with the hollows last words still ringing in her ears. She was a little confused. This wasn't exactly like waking up, more like she had fallen through a black hole, and became dizzy from it. She also felt pain: the lingering pain from the wounds created by the adjucha's claws found her anew when returning.

Also, she was not at home, but in a vaguely familiar room, lying on a bed. It took her some time to realize that this was Ichigo's old room, in the Kurosaki Clinic, which now served as guest room – but Isshin didn't really change anything in it, except for adding a cot for his grand-son's use, in which he would take his after-lunch nap when ever they visited. Looking over, she realized that he wasn't in it now, and panicked slightly.

'Sora!' she cried out.

'Don't worry... he's all right. I left him with Dad.'

Ichigo's strained voice came from next to the bed. Orihime sat up, and looked down on her husband. He was sitting on the floor, with his back leaning to the side of the bed. He let his head drop back, so he could look her in the eyes, him looking up, and her down.

'I'm so sorry!' he whispered, and his gaze was broken, weak, and full of remorse. 'I understand if you hate me now... for everything I've put you through...'

Orihime straightened up.

'You knew... you knew I was entering your inner world... You knew it when I told you about my dream... But you didn't tell me.'

Ichigo turned to ensure he still saw her face, and her emotionless expression seamed to confirm his worst fears. All he wanted was to protect her! But he screwed up! He wasn't able to prevent her from being exposed to his hollow, and all his attempts achieved was to hurt her feelings and ruin there relationship!

'Please forgive me...' was all he could say.

'I don't know about that...' Orihime said, and pain shoot through his face visibly upon hearing this. But the next moment she got off the bed and put herself onto his lap, burying her face in his chest. 'You've got to tell me everything first! And I want the complete truth this time! No more lies!' Her hand grabbed the front of his sikansho firmly.

He smiled relieved, and embraced her close. He began to talk. Orihime didn't interrupt. They both knew they needed to hurry – no signs of battle reached them now through the pressure waves, but they still needed to find out what happened to there friends - so the confession was swift, but throughout, and the forgiveness was given in just a kiss, a hug... but they really needed this moment to themselves now.

A cough and a soft knock on the door startled them, and they broke apart. Isshin's face appeared in the doorway. He was holding the sleepy, but still awake Sora in his arms. Seeing the pair's intimate position, his eyebrows raised in indignation.

'Orihime-chan! Is that any way to settle things after all he's done to you? This Idiot – who's no son of mine from now on – cruelly neglected you, lied to you, and possibly endangered your life with his stubbornness, and this is what he gets! At least send him on a nice long guilt trip in true feminine fashion before forgiving him, if you're not up to physical punishments yourself, but I would be only too happy to help you out with that too!'

Orihime just smiled sheepishly. Ichigo sighed, and pulled Orihime back for an other kiss, not caring about there audience.

'Hellooo! There is a war going on!' Isshin shouted. But his son seemed to pay no attention, so he decided to use his strongest card, and going over to them he pushed Sora right into there lap. The little boy did immediately what he was incapable of, and broke them apart again without any difficulty. Isshin still pretended to be scowling, but there was a suspicious little wetness in his eyes as he looked at the happy family before him.

'So, I don't mean to pry... just please tell me! Is Orihime-chan safe now?'

Orihime looked at Ichigo intensely, and after seeing his eyes shine with a steady light she answered instead of him.

'I think I am...' and after a moment of still gazing deeply at him she smiled and added whispering: 'I know I am.'

'Good!' said Isshin, returning to his usual cheery self. 'I want to see more grandchildren carry on the name of Kurosaki before I die! Dear Masaki! My prayers have been answered!'

Ichigo rolled his eyes and Orihime giggled.

'Anyway...' Isshin added more seriously. 'We need to get going! The attacks have stopped for now, but it's just too much to expect it's over jet... Everyone is invited to the Urahara Shop for an emergency meeting!'

And with that, he left the room to leave them a few more moments of peace together...

'Are we ready to go?' asked Orihime finally, with a sigh.

'No!' said Ichigo with a scowl. He pointed at her shoulder where her blouse was drenched in blood.

'Heheh! I almost forgot!' she laughed shakily.

Orihime called out her Soten Kisshun to make the marks of the adjucha's claws disappear from her body, while Ichigo went to the next room to find something for her to wear amongst the left-behind clothes of his sisters. He came back with a shirt and a sweater. He took Sora from Orihime's arms so that she could change. As she did, she suddenly remembered something.

'… Ichigo? Can I ask you one more thing?' she asked hesitantly.

'… anything!'

Her face popped out of the sweater's neck, and she was peering up at him, shyly for some reason.

'Did you... um... really use my powers?'

At first he didn't understand what she was talking about.

'What? Use your...' Then it all clicked into place. '... ah... I see...' He remembered. Of course he had used them, he had placed a Santen Kesshun shield above Sora to protect him, only he was unconscious of it at the time. Now he even remembered moving his hand, palm out, and casting it, as he saw Orihime do a countless of times. Ichigo's eyes widened with disbelief, as he looked at his own hands now, and couldn't help repeating the move to bring the memory closer. It was a strange feeling. Orihime watched him curiously.

'Sorry...' he said meeting her eyes again. 'I just remembered!' He slowly and hesitantly recounted to her what happened, best he could. When he finished Orihime was silent, looking at the floor for a long time, expression neutral.

'And you did it just like that...' she said finally. 'Without even the kotodama... or having to call out there names... took me years to get to that level...'

Then her head snapped up, and she was smiling again.

'Wow! I can't believe it!'

Seeing her fake smile, an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of Ichigo's stomach.

'Orihime... look, it may be just that it works differently for me... I mean the shield was red and not yellow, and I didn't see your fairies coming out, or anything...'

'Yeah... Maybe... Anyway, this is not your first time of successfully using new powers... so I guess it's not so surprising after all... you' re simply a natural with supernatural! And we both know how much stronger you are than me...' Her thoughts traveled back, and she could hear the hollows words repeated inside her head quite clearly: _'Just think about it... giving your potential over to be guided __by his superior powers! There would be nothing he couldn't do! No limits! Like a god! You would never have to fear for him again!'_

Ichigo's eyes searched her zoned out face, and the uneasiness grew.

'Orihime...' he called out to her softly. 'That's not true... you are just strong in different things than me... And there is a reason why you've got this power, and not me... Your power is a part of your soul, just like mine is a part of mine... the damn hollow included...' he added the last part bitterly. 'I could only use your power because you were there, in my inner world!'

Orihime was chewing on her bottom lip and not looking at him.

'But sometimes I feel that I'm so weak! I was blessed with this amazing power, and I feel like it's wasted on me... I can't fully control it... not even now...'

Tears were forming in her eyes. Ichigo answered angrily.

'Wow! Than you'd better show me a person who can! Did you ever listen to my story? I spent two weeks being in a devil of a funk, because I feared that I couldn't control my powers, and they might hurt you! And I felt so weak, and helpless, I can't even describe it to you!'

She smiled at him through her tears.

'But you never give up... you always find a way... I so love you!'

'… as I love you!'

Ichigo, Orihime and Isshin arrived at Urahara's place only a quarter of an hour later. Ichigo collected his real body on the way. Luckily, in all the commotion of the town being attacked, nobody found it. He also insisted they take a detour to flush the trembling Kon out of the deepest corner of his cupboard, where he hid himself when feeling the many hollows' spiritual pressures. (He was hugging a rather bad picture of Rukia that was clearly taken without her permission, and whining: _'Save me __nee-san__'.__)_

Sora was tied to Ichigo's back, in a bundle, where he slept soundly and comfortably. Ichigo also had a firm grip on Orihime's hand, as tough he never again wanted to let her go...

As they approached the shop, a dark haired figure ran up to them.

'Orihime!' It was Tatsuki. 'Oh, I'm so glad you're all right! Ishida and Rukia wouldn't tell me exactly what happened, they just said you were hurt, and Ichigo took you away...'

'I'm all right Tatsuki-chan...'

Tatsuki eyed Ichigo suspiciously. 'What happened, Berry-head? Why didn't you protect her better?'

Tatsuki expected her longest friend to snap back at her, like he usually did, and was shocked to see him hung his head guiltily instead. Urahara also came out now, witnessing the embarrassing scene...

'What happened?' Tatsuki asked again, more gently this time.

Orihime looked at Urahara, as she answered. 'Nothing... Tatsuki-chan, really! I took a bad step as usual... going somewhere I really shouldn't be... but Ichigo got there in time to save me!'

From the look in his eyes Orihime knew that the shopkeeper understood her hint. Ichigo lifted there interlocked hands up, to plant a kiss on her's back.

'I'm sure we will hear the full story some other time, Arisawa-san!' Urahara spoke up. 'But right now urgent matters are at hand... Please come inside, all of you!'

Urahara went ahead with Isshin, and the others followed them. As they went down to the underground training area Tatsuki filled them in about how she got to be there in the first place. '… so I was running from this monster. I kicked it a few times too, but it just wouldn't go down!'

'How many times do I have to tell you!' Ichigo scowled. 'Simply kicking won't hurt a hollow for long, no matter how strong your kick is! Honestly!' The truth was, he shivered inside at the thought that his friend had such a close call, and feeling guilty that he was not around to save her...

'Well I had to do something!' she snapped back. 'Chad arrived, and he fought really magnificently! But after the hollow disappeared he just lifted me up and carried me here, no matter how I protested! Wouldn't even tell me where he's taking me, until we got here! Can you believe it?'

Ichigo and Orihime laughed.

'We certainly can!' he said, his heart filling with gratitude towards the gentle giant.

They reached the others now. Renji, Rukia, Uryu, Chad and Yoruichi were all sitting on the ground, in semi circle, along with the crew of Urahara: Tessai, Ururu and Jinta, waiting for them. Orihime ran to Rukia. They embraced, and shared a few quiet words. As Ichigo sat down, he felt Uryu's questioning gaze on him, but he choose to ignore it right now.

Urahara cleared his throat, and looked down at them all jovially, as a teacher would look at his class.

'Everyone here... how nice!' The uniform dark looks directed at him made him to be more businesslike at once. 'So, as you already know Karakura Town is currently under threat of serious hollow attacks of grate magnitude! Also, there seems to be a shield, or barrier above us, which effectively seals off any means of communication with Soul Society that came to my mind so far. As well as seinkaimons in and out. It seems we're on our own to defend the town.'

'Can you think of a way to destroy the barrier?' asked Uryu.

'I'm already working on it... but whoever is behind the attacks, he knew what he was doing, and prearranged everything well... The shield covers almost all of Karakura, but the visored's hideout is out of it's limit, so we can't look to Shinji and the others for help either...'

'That leaves us here...' said Isshin with his eyes traveling through the group, and finally landing on Uryu. 'Unless...'

'No.' the Quincy answered the unspoken question. 'My father is currently out of town.'

'Unfortunate...'

'But we've got Renji and Rukia!' said Chad, and the two soul reapers smiled at him.

'So then! We should...' Urahara wanted to continue, but suddenly a ringing voice cut across his speech. Ichigo's face reddened slightly as he realized it was his phone making the racket.

'Sorry!' he said, pulling it out, and looking at the number. 'Oh, it's Karin... I'll tell her to call back later!' he picked up the phone. 'Hi, Karin!'

He listened for a moment than his eyes bulged.

'What, the... Toshiro! What the hell are you doing on my sister's phone?'

Everybody froze, and all there eyes turned in his direction interestedly. He listened again, than cut across the Captain on the other side of the line.

'Oh, wait, I'll put you through so that everyone can here you! We're having a meeting about the same matter right now! Guys, the Captain of the 10th division has some information for us...'

Hitsugaya's voice filled the air.

'… so, as I was saying we couldn't reach you through any normal way, so I decided to try it with a human device, and as you can see, it's not disturbed by the barrier... and your sister is the only human I know in possession of your number, outside of Karakura.'

'Ok, I get it, now what's the news?'

'At 3.52 pm this afternoon we got an anonymous message foretelling the coming invasion of Karakura Town, and also a demand. Whoever sent the message threatened to eliminate everybody in Karakura, unless Soul Society complies... Of course we wanted to inform you, and send help, but by the time we got authorization, the barrier sealing the city was already activated, and we couldn't get through!'

'What was the demand?' Ichigo asked.

'…'

'Toshiro?'

'IT'S CAPTAIN HITSUGAIA!

'Whatever... The demand?'

'The immediate release of Aisen Sousuke from prison...'

There was a few sudden intake of breath, and mutterings of 'What?', and 'No way!'. Uryu even said: 'Ridiculous!' Ichigo's eyes just traveled to Urahara, and there eyes met. Finally he snorted. The others all looked around to him with indignant faces, failing to grasp what he could possibly find funny in that...

'Well I can just see The Head Captain complying with that...' Ichigo said sarcastically. 'He'd rather lose his other arm too...'

'Exactly...' answered Hitsugaya. 'I'm sorry! It looks like your on your own, until we find a way to destroy this barrier! It might help, that we can at least communicate, though...'

'Yeah, I'm sure it will!' said Urahara in a happy voice. 'Dear Mayuri will be trilled by the idea of speaking to me through a human telephone!'

'But the attacks stopped...' said Rukia.

'Yes.' answered Hitsugaia. 'A second message gave us a three hour respite to think. Half of it is up already... I doubt we can do something about the shield that quickly... so brace yourselves...'

'Don't worry about us!' said Ichigo. 'We've got quite a team on this side too... should be able to handle anything.'

The others murmured there agreement.

'They will be aiming to kill, Kurosaki... and not just the warriors, but every human in town... there will be causalities...'

Ichigo sighed heavily.

'I know... we'll do our best...'

'Then I'll leave you rest for now. Call me on this number if you need anything! Oh yeah, and your sister asked me to tell you to try not to kill yourself...'

Ichigo smiled. Then something occurred to him.

'Toshiro! Could you do me one thing please?' Ichigo asked. 'There is this guy I met... well fought... He seems to be the leader of this attack. I want to know who he is! He said his name was Siwa... um Shari...'

'It's Sawamura. Hogai Sawamura.' said Rukia confidently. 'Arrancar looking, with a complete mask, with green marking's on it.'

'That's the one! Could you check it in Soul Society's database?'

'I'm on it!'

Ichigo put the phone down to look up at Urahara, who was having a strange look on his face.

'So, you fought him, have you? the shopkeeper asked thoughtfully. 'I doubt Captain Hitsugaya will be able to find any record of him in Soul Society...'.

'Than I take it you know who he is!' said Ichigo. Urahara looked at Isshin, and it was his father who answered him.

'No. But we have a general idea... and I'm proud to say, that our general ideas usually turn out to be quite correct...'

_Question's for today:_

_Who or rather what is Sawamura exactly, and what does he want with Aisen?_

_Is Orihime really safe now from Hichigo, or will he make a move during the battle?_

_Who will brake the barrier down in the end?_

_Whoever achieves the most "bonus points" in my little game until the end of this story will have an Ichihime fluffy oneshoot dedicated to him or herself! So keep guessing! :-)_


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Notes: Thanks for all your reviews and guesses! "himelove22" is leading in the guessing game currently! (claps hands...)_

_I'm sorry folks, I agree that bringing back Ulquiorra would be awesome (I actually like the character of the 4th espada very much), but Sawamura is not him. He's not even anyone from the manga. Maybe my question was a bit confusing. I only wanted you to guess on whether he was a former soul reaper, a hollow, a visored or human... so, my apologies, but Ulquiorra will only stay in Ichigo's dreams to cause trouble for now – and our favorites will have enough trouble as it is, even without him in the picture, lol!_

_This chapter is mainly about the battle for Karakura. _

Chapter 11

_A brief peace. _

_His head in her lap. _

_Steady breathing._

_Sora's little hand against his chest._

_Cozy darkness._

_No dreams..._

_He could stay like this for forever._

_An unwelcome voice._

_'Ichigo?… It's time...'_

Ichigo was slightly panting, but otherwise he was ok. There wasn't even a scratch on him yet, though he'd been fighting for hours now. He felt the past two week's lack of sleep, but whining about it right now did nothing good.

The hollows just kept coming and coming... Everybody was fighting. They divided up the city amongst themselves at first, but later the territories were starting to get confused in the heat of the battle. Ordinary hollows were scattered all over the city, and large groups of Menoses attacked from separate directions, under the leadership of higher ranked hollows, from the sides of the round shield, slowly coming towards the middle. It was a man-hunt...

Even Ururu and Jinta had to be at the front lines, and without Urahara's backup this time. He was the only one not fighting, or healing, because he was working on the braking down of the shield. But the kids were doing just fine, like everybody else. Uryu once received a nasty wound on his head, but after Orihime restored him he went back to fight immediately. Maybe even fiercer than before...

Orihime and Tessai were healing tirelessly, while Yoruichi and Isshin played "ambulance", transporting the most serious cases with flash-step, to the front yard of the Urahara Shop, the first-aid spot.

As much as Ichigo hated to admit it, they really needed outside help. They were heavily outnumbered, and though they clearly had the upper hand in skill and strength, the city was big, and they couldn't be everywhere at once. Despite all there best efforts, there were still a lot wounded, and sadly also a few lost souls... At least that was what they currently had knowledge of. Ichigo allowed himself a brief glance down in Orihime's direction.

She walked amongst the wounded, with her mouth pressed together in a thin line. As soon as her shield finished the work on someone, she placed it over somebody new. Her eyes showed how tired she was already. Not physically, but emotionally: seeing all that pain took a toll on her fragile heart... Ichigo was really worried for her.

He looked over to the corner where Tatsuki was trying to entertain Sora best she could, so he wouldn't interrupt his mother's work. Kon was also with them, in Ichigo's body. He looked smug, happy and confident: Ichigo had had a sudden educating idea for him. Before the battle began he had taken the mod soul away alone. He had told him that he now had such confidence in him, that he's making him bodyguard for Sora and Tatsuki (though the latter would have smashed his nose for this, if she had heard it...) So Kon now basked in the firm belief of his own self importance... that ought to prevent him from doing anything stupid, Ichigo thought.

But of course Ichigo would never let any hollow near the Urahara shop. He had purposefully chosen the protection of the first-aid spot as his job, so he could remain close to his family and ensure there safety first hand. It was also an important job... after some time most of the inhabitants of town possessing some level of spiritual energy were gathered there: they had been the firsts to have been attacked by hollows, and now the Shop was the largest hollow-bait imaginable in the whole town...

Ichigo reluctantly turned his attention back to the fight. He had started to count the hollows he had slashed down at the beginning of the fight, just for keeping his mind occupied, but had lost count after about a hundred... One thought kept nagging at the back of his head, and that was whether that Sawamura guy would choose to make an appearance... There was no sign of him jet, and this pissed off Ichigo more than anything. He did seem to be interested in fighting him last time, and Ichigo thought it would be more to the point if the two of them just had a spar for the city, and have done with it quickly, so that no-one else had to be in danger. But of course villains mind's didn't work that way.

_'And if he's really behind all of this...'_ Ichigo thought. _'...what the heck does he want with Aisen?'_ Urahara and Isshin hadn't really told them much about him, except for stuff they could have been able to guess on there own. They suspected that Aisen had made lots of experiments with the Hogyoku, and the feel of Sawamura's spiritual pressure along with the description of him given by Ichigo and Rukia seemed to confirm that he could be the product of one of those... This thought disturbed Ichigo a little, because on close inspection he himself was also a guinea-pig of Aisen's... along with Shinji and the other visoreds. Maybe that's why Sawamura was interested in him?

'Orihime-chaaaan!' Ichigo was distracted for a moment by a familiar, though unexpected voice crying. 'Oh, thank goodness Ichigo's here too! I swear I have had enough of these monsters to last me a lifetime and now the whole city is packed with them again... Oh! What do I do? I'm still too young to die!' Keigo Asano was whining at the top of his voice, with the usual waterfall of tears he was master of creating in his eyes. Even Ichigo had heard every word from up above.

There hyper friend was walking slowly towards the shop, his figure bent under the weight of hauling a body over his shoulder. Tessai went to him to help and as they lowered the body onto the ground they could see it was a girl's. Orihime also came over.

'I found her lying on the street not far from here...' Keigo told them, no longer whining. His eyes showed concern. His hand brushed the girl's long soft brown hair out of her face and Orihime was able to recognize there former classmate and one of her closer friends from High school.

'… Michiru!'

Orihime cast her shield immediately. Her heart was beating madly, and she didn't even realize why, until she felt Tessai's big hand squeeze down gently on her shoulder.

'Orihime-dono...' his deep voice was softly calling her.

She felt tears coming down her cheeks...

'… it's useless.' Tessai said sadly. 'You feel it... she's been taken... and there is nothing you or I or anybody could do for her now...'

It still took a few more minutes until she finally had the heart to call her shield back. She collapsed down to her knees next to Michiru's body and let her tears flow freely. Ichigo saw and felt her brake down, and had half mind to go to her right away, but Tatsuki went to Orihime's side, embraced her, whispering in her ear, and she waved to him to just go back to his protecting duty, she'll comfort her princess for now. He did, vowing to give everything he got into ensuring that they wouldn't have to face more such sorrows...

Tatsuki held Orihime firmly by her shoulder, trying to make her look into her eyes.

'Hime!'

'It's just too much... ' Orihime sobbed. 'Michiru... all these people hurt... Karakura... I can't take it any more!'

'Yes you can!' Tatsuki said firmly. 'Everybody is fighting! You can't afford to fall to pieces like that!'

Kon came to stand behind Tasuki with Sora in his hand. Orihime was still sobbing.

'I want to reject this... all of this... I want to make everything right...'

'You're doing all you can, Orihime-chan! We can all see that!' Kon said kindly.

Tatsuki continued gently rubbing her shoulder for some time, before adding sternly.

'Get yourself together and brush those tears away, Hime, or Ichigo will be distracted, and that's the last thing we need right now!'

Orihime brushed her face clean of tears.

'Yes... you are right Tatsuki...'

She stood up, and lifted Sora out of Kon's hand, hugging her son close. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing.

Isshin arrived a few moments later, with a new injured.

'Orihime-dono! This one requires your skills... ' called Tessai after investigating.

When she opened her eyes, they held the determination Tatsuki wanted to see. She gave Sora back and went to help immediately.

'That's my girl...' Tatsuki whispered after her. Then her eyes fell on Kon. 'You know I'm no fan of yours, but right now I'm glad you're here, Kon...'

'Same here, sis!'

Half an hour and 72 hollows later Ichigo finally heard a long awaited voice calling for him.

'Ichigo!'

It was Urahara. He was standing next to Orihime, who let her healing shield work on it's own for now, and was looking up at him, with worry in her eyes. Ichigo flew back to the ground beside them. Orihime threw herself into his arms right away, not wanting to waste this opportunity to embrace him.

'How long?' Ichigo asked Urahara, pointing up at the greenish barrier on the sky.

'We studied the structure of the shield, and I'm happy to say that we think we found a way to destroy it, which I'm almost sure will work...' said the mad scientist happily.

'Fine! Now do it, the faster the better!' he wanted to go back to fight, but Urahara's voice called him again.

'We'll need your help.' he said lightly and excitedly, with the air of someone requesting assistance for throwing together a tee party. Ichigo raised an eyebrow with suspicion. Urahara hastened to elaborate.

'Once we finished all the preparations, we need a large source of energy from both inside and outside the shield, unleashed at the same time... I think your Getsuga Tenso is the finest energy we could get!'

'Right. It's all yours. Just tell me where to fire it!' He wanted nothing more than for this stupid fight to finally end.

'It's not that easy, I'm afraid... you have to go up, as close as you can get to the barrier, and fire with all your might as soon as I give the signal, right there!' he pointed to a grate red X mark, painted to the sky.

Ichigo sighed. This was definitely Urahara's style of doing things...

'Will the barrier explode?' he asked.

Orihime stiffened in his arms.

'… probably...' said the shopkeeper with narrowed eyes and a sneering mouth. 'But I'm confident that you'll be able to handle it.' Urahara held his hand out, giving Ichigo a plain mobile phone for communication. He took it.

'Ichigo...' said Orihime fearfully.

'Don't worry, Orihime! If Gran ray Ceros and all Aisen's mutated forms were insufficient to finish me off, than I guess a dirty old shield won't do much damage!'

His attempt at humor was forced somewhat, but it managed to call out a small smile on her face all the same.

'I want to go with you... I'll use my shield to protect us...'

'No! You have to stay with Sora! Look, I promise to come back! Just make sure you take care of yourselves...' he kissed her forehead, and prepared to go, but turned back to Urahara for a last question.

'Who's doing it from the outside?'

'Good old Soi-Fong with her flashy bankai!' said Yoruichi, who just arrived next to them. 'No one better. And she's also willing to take the risk...'

'Oh, how I long to see her face right now...' laughed Urahara, which earned him a kick in the ribs by the violet haired woman.

_Questions:_

_Do you think Aisen will make an appearance in the story? (I mean personal appearance.)_

_Somebody will help Soi Fong. Can you guess who? (If you're familiar with the events of the Battle of Karakura arc it's easy to guess...)_

_Will Kon play a part in the battle?_


	12. Chapter 12

_WARNING! WARNING! If you want to read past this point you absolutely have to agree to stick with the story till the end, and not give it up, because the end of this chapter is really disturbing, and I can only promise you relief if you continue reading! So is it a promise? In return I promise you fast updates from now on, as the story is nearly complete already. (Chapter 14 is the end, and after that an Epilogue.)_

Chapter 12

As Ichigo was flying higher and higher up, he could see the true decree of destruction the town had suffered so far. It was a sad sight. Buildings broken, or even aflame, cars turned over, trees uprooted... The air smelled of smoke, gasoline and someone as experienced in battle as Ichigo could also feel the bitter-sweetness of blood.

A ringing voice came from the phone given to him by Urahara. He picked it up.

'Ichigo?'

'Yeah, I'm almost there!' he answered.

'Good! Now put the phone down, and next time it rings, that will be your signal to fire!'

'Roger that!' he put the device back into his robe.

He was almost to the shield, at the spot appointed by Urahara, when he felt somebody following him. He stopped in mid air facing the newcomer.

'About time!' Ichigo growled with satisfaction. It was Sawamura. Finally, he could confront the one responsible for all the hurt his dear hometown suffered!

'Ah... it's you...' apparently the other shared the content feeling upon there meeting. 'Figures... I'm sorry, but I can't let you destroy my shield! I worked too hard on creating it!'

Ichigo grabbed Zangetsu's hilt and took it from his back, black spiritual pressure already spreading from his hand showing him going bankai.

'I don't really care if you'll let me or not... I'm going to do it anyway! For Karakura.' He said when he was already in his long black-red bankai coat. He didn't wait for any more invitation, but attacked. There swords met.

'Suits me just fine...' the masked man answered.

It was just like last time. Sawamura was strong, much stronger than his average opponent, but still he could handle him. After a few fierce clashes he considered to call out his mask. He was sure he would be able to defeat him easily with it on. But he was also waiting for Urahara's signal: he couldn't miss the opportunity of destroying the shield, the others were counting on him. Maybe he should wait for that, and deal with the bastard after... So he decided to play for time.

'Can I ask you a question? Why do you want to help Aisen?' he asked Sawamura.

'Help him? No... not really...' They separated for a short time to converse, but kept there swords ready. 'I was once Aisen-sama's most loyal servant, his right hand... I did everything he ordered me to... Than one day he came to me, and told me he no longer needed me... he told me he found someone better... someone who will make a better servant... someone named Kurosaki...' his black eyes flashed behind his mask. 'But none of that matters now! He used to be my master, but those days are over! I am the true master now, as I will show him quite clearly by defeating you! I will make him regret ever leaving me behind! I will show him how strong I really am!'

Ichigo's eyes bulged.

'That's... but that's just plain stupid! Is this really the reason you're slaying the town for?' Sawamura payed him no attention though.

'Ichigo Kurosaki! Let me introduce you to my sword. He was originally a kido-type zanpakuto with the ability to project spiritual pressure making it good for creating shields. My hollow transformation greatly added to it's powers of course. How do you like the outcome?' He was showing him the sword. 'You see... just like you, I'm part human... we are similar in many ways... I know you also posses hollow powers, but now I'm going to show you the difference between using this power and completely accepting it... Now "Lift me"... "Evergreen field"' _(a/n: if anyone can __help me translate this to Japanese, please do...)_

His sword began to shine with a green light, the same color as the shield above them. Then it disappeared, and Sawamura's appearance began to change. His mask, that had covered only the front of his face before, now extended to hide his whole head. Dark green and brown scales appeared on his skin and the form of his body also changed, becoming somehow more flexible, making his appearance snake-like... The fingers on his hands became totally black, and on closer look they also resembled little snakes, all moving separately, sticking out there tongues sniffing the air.

Ichigo had seen quite a lot of ugly things in his life so far, but he guessed this new form of Sawamura's would still fit into the top 10...

_'That was not a __mere __sword re__lease__...'_ he understood. _'That was __more like __an arrancar's __r__esurrección__...'_

The snake-creature came at him attacking. Ichigo realized with the very first clash that he's also going to need a power-boost to be able to keep up with him now. He was that much stronger. So he reached over his face, and pulled his mask into place...

And they fought...

_'Crap! I still can't hold him!' _Ichigo thought, as those snake-fingers threatened to curl around Zangetsu, and he could only free it in the last minute.

In truth, it was not that Sawamura was stronger then him, more the fact that he fought with no restraints at all. He's attacks were totally instinct driven, and had Ichigo been less experienced in battle than he was he would have been in real trouble. They fought evenly for a few minutes. Ichigo prayed Urahara would give him that signal already... until he took care of the shield, he couldn't give his full attention to the battle...

'Is this really all the power you've got, soul reaper?' Sawamura asked him. 'I can't really understand how could you ever defeat somebody like Aisen-sama...' His snake-fingers lengthened, and attacked Ichigo from 10 different directions at once. He defended himself, but one snake managed to curve around his neck, strangling him. Two others took hold of his wrists... He tried to brake free, but the hold was strong. Sawamura had him pinned to the surface of the shield... 'Maybe you've just lost your touch since then... I don't care! If you're just going to make this easy, I'll kill you right now, and wipe this whole town's existence from this Earth! The same thing my master wanted to do, but failed!'

At that moment the mobile phone started to ring.

'Shit!' Ichigo chocked out.

Sawamura's eyes widened with surprise for a moment, but he didn't release him. Ichigo had only one choice left, if he wanted that shield destroyed, and so he acted accordingly. He called his spirit energy into action, but kept the power his Getsuga Tensho gave him concentrated in his sword's blade, he didn't fire it. He managed to turn in Sawanura's death-lock, and trusted his sword right into the shield's surface.

The shield began to quiver, and it's light intensified. Sawamura realized what was happening, and now it was his time to swear.

'Shit!' He let go of Ichigo right away. 'Oh, no you don't...!'

In the blink of an eye he turned back from his resurrección form, and took his sword into his hand once more. He imitated Ichigo in thrusting his own blade into the shield deeply. They looked at each other with wild eyes.

Ichigo cried out a moment later, because he felt a grate thrust on his sword, which almost yanked it out of his grasp. Zangetsu's hilt began to heat up. Soi Fong's bankai must have hit the other side... The shield emitted more light with every second.

All around town everybody froze. Human, soul reaper and hollow alike... Everyone's faces were turned upwards, in the direction of the grate brightness up on the sky. The light grew and grew. Those spiritually aware could feel the energy building up.

Orihime was looking up, her eyes searching for the form of her husband. But he was very far up, and the brightness blinded her eyes, so she couldn't really see him. This didn't stop her from looking though... Yoruichi and Kon stood beside her, and Tatsuki with Sora.

'Don't worry, Orihime-chan!' the confident voice of the violet haired cat-woman soothed her. 'It will be all right!'

'Yeah...'

'Orihime?' Tatsuki asked her quietly. 'Sora's asleep... I'll sit down with him, over there.'

Orihime was so distracted, that she didn't get any answer first.

'Sorry... of course, Tatsuki... you do that...' Orihime absentmindedly reached out to brush gently through Sora's hair before Tatsuki walked away with him. Kon followed them.

Back at the sky, Ichigo kept a strong hold on the hilt of Zangetsu, as he pumped more and more energy into it. It became more difficult with every second. His hand felt like it was on fire, and the burning sensation began to spread up his whole arm. He cried an angry desperate cry, resisting the pain.

The pressure was too much. His own spiritual pressure would be enough to tear his body apart, being held back for so long like this, and now he had his opponent's pressure and the energy of Soi Fong's bankai on top of that to deal with too...

From the corner of his eye he could see Sawamura. He seemed to be doing no better than him. They looked at each other, there eyes reflecting the battle of wills. Whoever could take it no longer would loose...

The shield was becoming unstable, vibrating and changing color in fast succession. Finally Sawamura's hand shook, and his grip slackened on his sword. He cried out in pain and in frustration. The shield was blazing with a blinding yellow light, and cracks began to form on it, right from the spot where Ichigo's sword was inside it. And finally it exploded.

The first thing Ichigo felt was relief. His brain registered nothing else than the absence of pain: the burning sensation in his hand stopped. Compared to that burning all the spiritual pressure had caused the injuries inflicted by the explosion seemed hardly to count... Yet, the air around him was full of red droplets, that could only be his blood... His mask broke away from his face. He was only dimly aware of the fact that he was falling, and with grate speed: the explosion had thrown him back. And he had no power right now to stop his fall as he was momentarily drained. He would crash into the ground mercilessly any minute.

Then he collided with something. It was hard at first, but didn't brake him, and afterwords embraced his body quite snugly. He felt the spiritual pressure and smiled, closing his eyes contently. He only opened them when Orihime's shield brought him back to the ground. Looking up, he saw her concerned eyes, and smiled again. She cast a healing shield this time. His body had angry burned marks all over it, being worst on his right hand.

'See... told you... dirty shield... nothing...' he managed to whisper.

'Idiot!' commented Yoruichi. 'I thought Kisuke told you to blow the shield up, not yourself!' then she grinned. 'Apart from that... good job, Strawberry!'

Above them, the members of the Gotei 13 were coming down from the sky. Kenpachi was at the front, jumping into battle eagerly, with a huge grin on his face. Ikkaku and Yumichika was only behind him a few steps, so as not to get into there Captain's way. Hitsugaia had his bankai out, and Hyorimaru roared. Bayakuya flash-stepped gracefully to the scene, followed by the inseparable pair of Ukitake and Shunshui. Captain Unohana was already next to Tessai, arranging her squad of healers.

'Hey there Ichigo! Nice firework display!' grinned Shinji, landing next to Urahara and Isshin, who just emerged from the Shop's building. Shinji's fellow visoreds also joined the battle. Hachi and Soi Fong came together: Hachi had used his force field to protect her from the green barrier's explosion. The two trusted each other as far as it was about battle... Yoruichi flash-stepped away to join her former protege in battle.

'So, where is the guy?' Shinji asked turning to Urahara.

Hat and cloaks pointed a finger to a grate crater near by. It was caused by Sawamura's landing. The man's body was in the middle of it, forced into a strange angle, and he did not move. Only his eyes showed he was still alive.

Urahara, Isshin and Shinji approached cautiously. His green marked white mask was cracked just a little, near it's eye-holes, but as they watched the cracks already began to spread. Sawamura cried out in pain.

'It's not too late, you know...' Isshin said to him quietly and sadly. 'You still have a chance... just let that mask go...'

'I've tried... I can't...' he whispered brokenly. But than he began to shout... 'I SO HATE YOU! I hate soul reapers, I hate hollows, and I hate you Ichigo Kurosaki!'

Ichigo sat up behind Orihime's shield, and looked at the scene. Sawanura continued to scream.

'I hate everybody! But most of all I HATE YOU AISEN!'

No more coherent words left him after that, but he still continued to scream with agony.

'Yeah...' said Shinji under his breath with a solemn look. 'I know how you feel brother...'

Isshin looked at Urahara.

'Should we...?' he asked, uncertainly, razing his sword. 'I mean he's not dead jet...' But even as he asked, Sawamura's mask broke completely apart, and blue light started to form around him. After it was gone, they could see a body laying on the ground. The mask was gone, and so was the warrior: this was the body of a withered old man with a long mane of matted grey hair and beard. He was dead.

'So this is what is left of him... He could no longer exist without his hollow... ' Urahara said, hiding his face with the brim of his hat. Then he put an arm to Isshin's. 'Don't worry. Ichigo's sword already cleansed him... the hollow in him is gone, and the human can finally rest in peace... it's all for the best...'

Ichigo let himself fall back on the ground. His thought's revolved around Sawamura's fate, and found that deep in his heart he could pity him a little in the end... He felt the familiar feeling of his power being restored by the Rikka shield, and he relaxed into the sensation gladly. It was over. He did his job, so now he can let the others finish hunting down the hollows to the last one. Karakura was safe...

Orihime smiled down on her husband, her heart full of relief.

There exhausted friends also came over to them one by one. Chad collapsed down next to Orihime, his right arm transforming back to it's original state. Uryu came to sit down next to him, whining about how the last hollow he defeated managed to brake his glasses first. Renji was arguing with Rukia, both insisting that they still wanted to fight, while telling the other to rest. All of them had a few wounds, but nothing too serious.

Isshin and Urahara went to search for Ururu and Jinta, and Shinji joined the battle, leaving the friends together to rest.

Suddenly Ichigo stilled behind the shield.

'Orihime? Where is Tatsuki? And Sora?'

She also stilled, and looked to the corner where she had left them together, with Kon. But they were gone. She looked around, searching.

'ICHIGOOOOO!' Everybody heard Kon's desperate cry, and the warriors all raised up to there feet. Ichigo's head collided with the healing shield roughly, and he was forced to remain is place. His power was only half back.

Kon was attacking a huge hollow, like a mad-man... It was an ordinary hollow, not anything special... but in his hands there were two figures...

'NOOO!' Orihime's cry was heartbreaking, and her shield broke apart instantly into a thousand tiny pieces as she lost control over it...

The next moment two zanpakutos, and a quincy arrow ran simultaneously through the monster's body, making it disappear. But it was already too late... The hollow's last act had been to take the two human souls with him...

...

Time seamed to stop. The moment was frozen. Nobody moved, or spoke, and in the total silence it was almost possible to hear the braking of hearts... But it couldn't last forever this state of numbness, and pain suddenly caught up with them.

Orihime was the first to move. She began to tremble, than screamed, shouted, falling to the ground. Ichigo's own grief was momentarily subdued, as there was no more room inside of him to feel anything else than feel for her, and to be worried for her, because she really seamed mad with grief. He tried to soothe her, but it wouldn't work. He called her name many times to no avail. She wouldn't even let him hold her. Just when he began to despair completely, she suddenly stopped.

She stood up with tear soaked face, but no longer trembling or screaming. Her eyes were very round as she looked at Ichigo.

'He knew this moment would come...' she whispered.

...

_Author's Notes: Please, please don't hate me for doing this! Remember, this is not the end yet! _

_(If you think I'm too cruel for doing this to Orihime, than I can only defend myself by sharing some personal information about myself (don't read, if you don't want to...). I am the mother of two little boys, and I came very close to loosing my second son even before he was born... at one time a doctor said to me there was no way I could have him... Good thing I didn't believe him! My son is past his second birthday now, and he is totally healthy! But at first I had to fight through hell for him, for more than 2 months, until I could take him home... So I know something about how determined a mother can be when it comes to saving there child. Consider me writing about this topic now as a part of my healing process... )_

_No questions for today, but please review! And maybe I will add the next chapter tomorrow, so as not to keep you on the edge for too long!_


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

_Time seamed to stop. The moment was frozen. Nobody moved, or spoke, and in the total silence it was almost possible to hear the braking of hearts... But it couldn't last forever this state of numbness, and pain suddenly caught up with them. _

_Orihime was the first to move. She began to tremble, than screamed, shouted, falling to the ground. Ichigo's own grief was momentarily subdued, as there was no more room inside of him to feel anything else than feel for her, and to be worried for her, because she really seamed mad with grief. He tried to soothe her, but it wouldn't work. He called her name many times to no avail. She wouldn't even let him hold her. Just when he began to despair completely, she suddenly stopped. _

_She stood up with tear soaked face, but no longer trembling or screaming. Her eyes were very round as she looked at Ichigo. _

_'He knew this moment would come...' she whispered._

If Ichigo despaired just a moment ago, then now he was scared... what he saw in Orihime's eyes, scared him. She continued.

'He knew it... and thanks to him I know now what I have to do... '

'Orihime, please...'

Nobody else beside the two understood what was going on. Rukia, Uryu, Renji, Chad and Kon could just watch, mesmerized, for it was evident by the way they spoke that something was terribly wrong...

'You know that my power alone is not enough for this... but maybe... I'm not afraid any more!'

She went closer to him, putting her arms around his neck. The watchers were taken aback by the fact that there were tears on his face now.

'No!' he whispered.

'You must do this for me, Ichigo!'

'Orihime... no!' he pleaded again.

She kissed him fiercely, then pulled herself close to him, resting her head over his heart. She remained like that for a few seconds, and heard how his heart beat fanatically inside his chest, and how his breath came out sharp and raged. But inside her own heart there was a strange calmness... Finally she pulled away braking free of his shaking hands.

'I'm sorry, Ichigo... but this is my choice! I love you...'

'NO!'

She touched his forehead as he shouted, and the next moment a blinding yellow light hid them from view. There friends fell to the ground, as a sudden outburst of ridiculously strong spiritual energy swept over them. But it didn't stop... it kept rising higher and higher, until it was so high that it finally became unreadable... The yellow light slowly started to turn into a deep red, with a tint of black at the edges...There was a sound like an explosion, and the light disappeared.

Ichigo stood alone in the middle of a grate crater. His eyes were closed. His bankai outfit has changed from black to that deep red like the light from earlier. His sword was nowhere to be seen. Instead there was a strange mark on his forehead, also blood red. As they looked closer they could recognize the mark was in the shape of a 6 petaled flower... they also noticed Orihime's body lying crumpled, broken and motionless on the ground by his feet.

Ichigo opened his eyes. They were totally black with no visible sclera or anything. Like empty tunnels. He raised his hands in front of him, palms facing out, and said only two words...

'I reject!'

A red force field began to grow out of his palms, and it stretched out, growing with grate speed, swallowing up the whole front-yard of the Urahara shop, the nearby streets, then finally the whole of Karakura town. Rukia, Uryu, Renji and Chad looked around them with wonder, as they felt there wounds close up, and all the pain leave them. All around Karakura town the traces of the battle vanished like they never were. The wounded healed, and even the buildings repaired themselves.

Ichigo moved. He went to where Sora's and Tatsuki's body lay on the ground, and put his hand to the little boy's forehead. He called out his name clearly, and before the amazed watcher's eyes Sora opened his eyes. They were round with surprise, but apparently filled with life... Ichigo repeated the same with Tatsuki. When she came to, she looked utterly confused...

Ichigo took Sora up into his arms, and told Tatsuki to relax for a bit. The brown was starting to return to his eyes, but they were still too dark to be normal.

As the red shield continued to work, every trace of the grate battle disappeared slowly. Everything healed... but one thing remained unchanged. Rukia was the first to understand. She ran to Orihime's motionless body, and grabbed her wrist fiercely. There was no sign of pulse... She turned her friend over with shaking hands, and saw her beautiful face ashen, and her eyes empty.

'Orihime!' she whispered through her tears.

Finally the red shield finished it's work, and disappeared. When Rukia looked up she saw that Ichigo came next to her. He held out Sora to her.

'Please look after him for just a little while, Rukia...' his voice was distant, nothing like his own. Rukia took the baby in her shaking hands.

'Ichigo...'

He went back further from her and suddenly disappeared into thin air, with an other flash of light...

…...

Ichigo entered his inner world. Everything around him was on fire. Huge flames licked the sides of the buildings, and as they raged on a few of them began to collapse. Of course, he was also there...

The hollow faced him in the middle of all the destruction. For once he wasn't smiling or sneering. His white shikansho was painted reddish by the light of the dancing flames.

'And I thought you could do nothing worse to this world, than sink it in water...' he accused him.

Ichigo raised his hand, and his sword appeared out of nowhere, and he attacked without a second thought. As there swords met, he said:

'You know what I want! Where is she?'

'Safe!'

'Don't mock me!' Ichigo directed an other grate blow at the hollow. 'Where is she?' he asked again, screaming now.

The hollow stepped back from him, and his sneer was visible again for a moment.

'Do you seriously want to know?'

As Ichigo looked at him, he could see his eyes. The golden-black eyes turned to a softer color, just for a flash... hazel brown... Ichigo forgot how to breath... He thought he'd been through every kind of pain that was humanly possible, but this was beyond everything.

After he found his voice again, fighting the fog that was threatening to dim his senses, he spoke quietly and calmly.

'Give her back.'

'No.'

Ichigo just nodded. He had expected as much. He raised Tensa Zangetsu high in his hand, and took up an attacking stance.

'Don't kid me!' the hollow sneered. 'You can't really be serious about fighting in that half-assed state of yours! Just look at you! Pathetic! Are those really tears in your eyes? Tears! King, crying like a sissy! Now I've really seen everyth...'

But he was cut short, because Ichigo shoot forward like a bullet, and crashed into him with such force, that he couldn't hold him, and they both crashed through 2 buildings, coming to a halt causing a crater in the 3rd's side. Ichigo was pinning his hollow to the ground. He never lost his grip on his sword through the fall.

'You really know nothing about tears...' he said through gritted teeth.

The hollow was taken aback, but recovered quickly, and they proceeded to a fierce sword's fight.

'You should have realized...' Ichigo said. 'I have nothing to lose now... So I will fight! Fight until you give her back, or until I die! And take you with me!'

As though affirm his words, the flames licking the buildings rose twice as high as they had been before...

The hollow went further from him, starting to swing his sword around, as was his custom.

'I really fail to understand what is your problem, Ichigo! You should thank me, you know!' he told the glaring soul reaper. 'Because I was telling the truth. She is safe, and nobody can touch her ever again. She has became a part of your power. Maybe she was meant to be like this from the very beginning... And I waited for her to come willingly, you can't complain!' He stopped spinning the sword, and took it's hilt back firmly into his right hand. 'All this power! How can you not enjoy it? It really is... addicting! But no matter! If you're too afraid to grasp it, then I'll just crush you and take it all myself!'

Without any warning, the hollow raised his bare left hand, and a red Koten Zanshun shield erupted from his palm. Only instinct saved Ichigo, as he half-consciously countered with a Santen Kesshun using it for the second time now. Both shields broke on contact.

The hollow laughed. 'Good, King! Good! I prefer a sword fight anyway!'

They continued to fight, not getting really anywhere, because they were evenly matched. Neither would go down.

'You know why you can't beat me, King?' the hollow finally laughed with an insane laugh. 'Because you want this too! I know you do! Now we have the power you've always dreamed of!'

Ichigo went white with anger. But the hollow didn't stop there...

'Don't you understand? We finally have the power to protect everyone! Always! Screw "shatter fate"! With this power, we can be FATE itself!'

'Fate...?' Ichigo closed his eyes, but his hands shifted on the hilt of his sword for a better hold. 'No... it's you who doesn't understand...' he swung himself forward unexpectedly, crying at the top of his voice. 'Orihime IS my FATE!'

And his sword ran the hollow through, impaling him completely.

There was no feeling of triumph in him, only a desperate determination. The next moment he was shocked to feel pain. He watched as red fountains of blood sprayed not only from his hollow's chest, but from his own too, though the hollow's sword never reached him. The same wound appeared on both of them.

The hollow spat out some blood, and looked at him, not sneering at all.

'I see... you were serious after all... '

He leaned on his sword, and Ichigo did the same.

'Did you really think I would allow that?' As the hollow spoke, his appearance changed slowly to allow the features of Tensa Zangetsu to show, until he took on the same form Ichigo had already fought in the Dangai.

'I won't allow you to hurt yourself!' the Tensa-hollow shouted.

'I wondered when you would show up...Tensa...' Ichigo commented sourly.

'I didn't want to interfere, but this is going too far! Ichigo!' his power-figure told him. 'Stop this right now!'

'Like hell I will! Not unless you give Orihime back!'

'Sorry, I can't do that. You may talk to her here later on, but it's still too early for that...'

'Give her back, damn it!'

Tensa-hollow's unmatched eyes narrowed. There was a flash of light, and he splited himself in two – the white Ichigo looking hollow was back, along with the black haired young Tensa, both having identical white swords in there hands. Tensa turned to the hollow.

'Come on! Let's throw him out of this world. He's not being reasonable right now...'

'I'll give you reasonable!' Shouted Ichigo, and he attacked again, battling two against one this time. He fought savagely, insanely. He slashed through the air wielding his sword with both hands, bringing down blow after blow. He fired as many Getsuga Tensho's and even Koten Zanshun shields as he could manage, not caring about fatigue, pain or blood, not caring about anything...

His two opponents didn't have any intentions of hurting him. They were really hard pressed to defend themselves. Any time Ichigo managed to get past there defenses, the wound caused by his attack would show on the attacker as well as the target. They were really defending him... But still they couldn't throw him out.

Finally the hollow and Tensa were forced to resort to be hiding behind a Santen Kesshun shield struggling to keep it in place against his contiguous mad-attacks.

'Wow! The hollow commented with a half grin. 'It's almost worth it seeing him finally fight like this... it's what I've always wanted!'

'Idiot!' Tensa scolded him, while not lifting his concentration off from the shield. 'Can't you feel how close already he is to his limit? He's starting to loose control! And this world... see how almost all the skyscrapers burned to the ground now? We have to throw him out now, or he really will...'

There was a grate explosion. Tensa had been right. Ichigo had really lost control over his own power and the last Getsuga Tenso backfired.

Ichigo fell to the ground. There were hardly any part of his body left without damage. Tensa's eyes were very sad as he looked down on him. He still struggled in wain to get up... Tensa seized his chance and waved a hand dismissing him from that burning world...

'Will he be all right?' the hollow asked Tensa, failing to hide the concern in his voice.

'I really don't know...'

…...

Ichigo returned to the real world. He collapsed down, crying out in pain. He turned on his back, breathing heavily, and even as he did so, his bankai vanished to be replaced with his ordinary black shikansho, and Zangetsu's shikai. That was how far he was spent... But the marking on his forehead remained.

Chad and Uryu started to ran to him.

'Ichigo!' They shouted. But before they could reach him they stopped, because they saw someone appear behind the soul reaper. Ichigo felt the newcomer without even having to look at him. He struggled to get up, raising his sword shakily with the last bit of power he had. His vision was so blurry, he could hardly see.

'So, it's you now, old man!'

'Ichigo!' Zangetsu called out to him in his deep calm voice. 'You've got to stop this! You're world is all ashes now... at this rate, nothing will remain...'

'I don't care!' He shouted, closing his eyes, but standing up straight now, prepared to fight once more.

'You'll destroy yourself...' the most human of all his power forms told him.

'I don't care!' he shouted again, lifting his sword.

'But I do! That's why I decided to give her back...'

Ichigo finally looked up at him. He saw the old man standing there, in his usual black coat, with his long hair flying around his face. And as he looked he saw that he was holding a body in his hands... a body that looked so small... Orihime's form was limp, her head hanging down and her eyes closed, but her cheeks were shining red, like she were in a fewer.

Ichigo's sword fell out of his hands. A glimmer of mad hope slowly filled his formerly lifeless eyes.

'Orihime!'

He raised a hand towards her, and took a stumbling step forward. Zangetsu gently put her down by his feet, and Ichigo collapsed down to her other side. He started calling his love gently, caressing her face with one hand, willing her to open her eyes.

'Orihime... Orihime!' But she didn't move. 'Zangetsu... why won't she wake?'

'Because I still need to free her spirit. She gave herself up of her own accord – I never would have thought that was possible for any human being to do, but she did it... that's why I can give her back now, because she haven't been broken by force. But I'm not sure if it will actually succeed, Ichigo! I don't know if she's strong enough to bare going back... she may not survive it! And you have to understand one thing. If I try to free her, and she doesn't survive, you will lose all the power she bestowed upon you...'

Ichigo took Orihime's hand in his, and looked up with new rage shining in his eyes.

'I don't want any power!' he screamed. 'I just want Orihime!'

'Very well then... ' Zangetsu said. He knelt down and put one hand to the back of Orihime's neck. 'Hold her down, Ichigo!' He did, as he was told, and his eyes widened in shock as he saw the old man raising his other hand above her body.

'I'm sorry, Orihime...' Zangetsu addressed the motionless girl. 'But I have to hurt you one last time!' And with that his hand was trust forward. It went right through her chest. Her blood spilled everywhere, like a red fountain, spraying Ichigo's body and face. She opened her eyes, and screamed...

Zangetsu's hand slowly began to move backwards, and as it came out, he was holding the hilt of a sword... He continued pulling it out, exposing more and more of the blade itself. Orihime was trashing and turning in Ichigo's grasp, and he held her best he could, with tears flowing continuously down his face.

It took a long time for the sword to be freed of her chest, and Ichigo felt like he couldn't take it any longer. Finally only the tip of the blade reached her, and with a last gate thrust, Zangetsu pulled it out completely.

Orihime's body relaxed, and she finally let out a huge breath. Ichigo released her, and collapsed next to her. He just realized that he was also in physical pain, and the 6 petaled flower shape vanished from his forehead, leaving a burned mark, and a thin line of blood running down between his eyes...

Everything that happened was far too much for any watcher to take in just jet. Nobody moved. Finally Orihime's voice brought them back.

'Ichigo?' she called out to him. They looked into each others eyes for a moment, and after seeing that his wife was indeed back, he was finally overcome by all the physical and emotional stress, and passed out. She however had an other name to call out jet.

'Sora?'

The baby boy raised a hand upon hearing his mother's voice in Rukia's hands. Rukia felt her legs move, and brought Sora to Orihime's side, who smiled weakly at her son. Orihime soon passed out too.

Sora was fidgeting in Rukia's hands, so she put him down, and he crawled close to his mother's body. His small hands searched her face, and his fingers started playing with her hair...finally touching one of her hairpins.

A yellow light appeared instantly. It was not exactly a solid shield, but the light surrounded Orihime, Ichigo and Sora too. And there was no doubt about the nature of the light: it was the little boy's own power, who looked up to Rukia with innocent eyes, using his mother's Soten Kisshun to heal his parents... and the wounds on there bodies slowly closed up...

After the light vanished, Sora snuggled himself into his mothers arms, and went to a peaceful sleep.

…...

_Author's Notes: So, here it is, the grate climax of my story... I hope you are satisfied with how it came out. I worked really-really hard over the past weeks to finally get here, so have a heart and please tell me what you think! Did I do justice to the amazing characters? (now meaning mostly Tensa and the hollow) Was everything clear? I'll try to answer any questions you may have._

_Questions for my guessing game:_

_Will Hichi accept defeat now? _

_Will Sora be able to use powers later?_

_Orihime will get an unexpected visitor in a dream. Can you guess who?_

_(This is your last chance collect a bonus-point! I'll announce the winner along with the "Epilogue" chapter.)_


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The sky was light blue again, with a few fluffy cotton of clouds. The skyscrapers were all back to normal, though a few of them still held traces of the grate fire, with a burned mark here and there. Zangetsu was looking up at the sky, where – if he really concentrated – he could even feel the sun shining down on him, faint, but definitely there... He stayed like this for a long time, enjoying the peace, that evaded this world recently.

Finally he looked down, and his gaze fell on the creature sulking in a corner near by. The hollow was occupied with polishing his black and white nails with the huge sword in his hands. His mouth was pressed together in a thin line and his eyes narrowed.

'I still think it could have worked, Zangetsu!'

He shook his head.

'You don't understand, do you? This is exactly the reason why he is the "King" as you prefer to call him, and not you...'

'What do you mean?' the hollow asked, throwing the sword down in irritation.

'Just look around... some sort of balance is necessary. Only power and instinct will burn itself out fast... You may be stronger than him sometimes... he has emotions, worries, doubts, which weaken him. Because he's human. But being so, he can give balance...'

The hollow was now chewing it's nails in irritation.

'Well I don't really understand your bullshit, but don't worry!' he answered the zanpakuto spirit. 'I'll never try anything of the sort again... I've got the message. The sun should stay on the fucking sky... Being a hollow I prefer the dark anyway, and I'm not that found of fires... And if you don't mind, I really should go back now... all this sweet happy ending is making my stomach turned over...'

Zangetsu nodded, and the hollow evaporated in black smoke to become one with him again.

…...

'You've got exactly 5 minutes.' said Head Captain Yamamoto, before stepping from before the door. All the Gotei 13 Captains were present, and most of them were sending disbelieving glances to the commander. But Urahara had his permission from the Central 46, so they couldn't complain...

'Thank you Head Captain... It will be enough.' Urahara went through the door alone. Inside the small room there were no windows – the prison was deep underground. Also there was no bed, no furniture, except a chair, to which the prisoner was tied...

'Ah, what a nice surprise... only a decade passes from my sentence of 200000 years, and I already got a visitor! You must have missed me, Urahara Kisuke.'

'Aisen.'

The two man looked at each other. A small smile was pulling the corner of Aisen's mouth.

'Let me guess... he came out to the open, didn't he?'

'I must say I'm relived that you catch on so quickly... I was wondering how many more nasty surprises you're still holding back on us... seems like this was your only card...'

'Tell yourself that, if that makes you happy...'

'So, are you inclined to tell the story?'

'There is not much to tell... he was a disappointment. The first half human, half soul reaper I managed to find. Either he was weak from the start, or my half finished hogyoku didn't have quite the power for it... maybe both. He fell victim to his hollow far too early, his growth rate stopping there. End of story.'

'Charming. Well, I guessed as much...'

'Maybe I should have intervened when he killed his own family in hollow form... that was the turning point. He never came back after that. He just lost his will to resist... Pity... He was a grate pre-study though. Who dealt with him?' Aisen asked, pretending to be off hand. Urahara only answered by raising an eyebrow. Aisen laughed.

'I see... so he's got his powers back after all... now I can finally spend my remaining 199990 years happy...'

…...

Isshin sat alone on the seaside. The sun was already high on the sky. He was watching some seabirds hunt, and was thinking about many things. Past, present and future. And the curious ways of fate... If it was possible for a man to be really-really happy, and really-really sad all at one time, than Isshin now felt that way.

He didn't hear the approaching foot-steppes of his son, as they were muffled by the sand, but a soul reaper is hard to catch by surprise.

'Hey!'

He only looked up when he felt Ichigo standing next to him. The blazing sun painted his already orange hair to an even more violent shade. He had Sora with him, and now put the little boy down, holding his hands, so he could take a few stumbling steps on the edge of the water, where the waves tickled his feet.

Ichigo had remembered the promise he had made himself about a vacation, and with the help of his father, they rented a little house on a secluded beach for a couple of weeks. They were expecting Karin and Yuzu to join them for the weekend...

Kon was also with them, and he now came out, balancing a huge beach umbrella with difficulty due to his small lion plushy body.

'Orihime?' asked Isshin, though knowing the answer already.

'Still sleeping...'

Almost a week passed since the grate fight, and Orihime was still sleeping from 14 to 20 hours a day. Like a newborn. In the few hours she spent awake she seemed to be rather fine, though very-very tired, and a little disoriented at times. It pained Ichigo to see her like that, with the usual "orihimeish" glint missing from her eyes, and her usually carefree spirit shaken. And while her current sleepiness didn't disturb him, he was concerned about what the long term effects would be...

'Don't worry.' his father said, surveying his pained frown. 'Remember what Urahara said... She will be fine! We have no reason to believe the contrary. We just have to give her some more time.'

'I know.' Ichigo sighed. He rubbed a spot on his forehead absentmindedly: there was still a faint trace of that burned mark the 6 petaled flower shape left, and no surgery, kido or even Orihime's ability was able to remove it completely. He didn't really mind it though.

Ichigo sat down next to his father, and the two man watched the little boy play with the sand. Sora was totally fine, and with all luck, he will have no memory whatsoever of the incident. Tatsuki was also fine, and even she remembered little.

'… and how are YOU?' his father asked him tentatively, after some time. He scowled.

'… fine.'

Ichigo looked away, but could feel that Isshin's gaze was still on him.

'… more particularly?'

He offered a grim smile.

'Not fine.'

'I thought so...'

They have so far avoided really discussing everything that happened. Ichigo had only told his father the facts briefly. Isshin knew that the wounds were still too fresh, so he didn't press the matter before, but he saw how it was eating his son from the inside, so he now decided to try to get it out of him.

'But I'm not complaining...' Ichigo continued with a sigh. 'I'm unbelievably lucky, you know... I almost lost both of them...'

Isshin was looking at the dancing waves in the distance with a serious and thoughtful air.

'As I see it, luck had very little, if anything at all to do with it...' he answered slowly. 'It was Orihime's strength, determination and self-sacrifice that saved Sora, and yours that saved her...'

Ichigo was looking ahead, avoiding his father's gaze. A lump was forming in his throat.

'By lucky I mean that at least I had the chance to fight for her...'

'I see...'

Both knew the other was also thinking of an other woman, who also sacrificed herself to save her son... And that time, neither of them had the chance to fight for her. Ichigo remembered his dreams, the nightmares he'd been having for more than a year now, ever since he learned he would be a father. It was like he had expected something like this to happen...

Kon was now putting up the umbrella above Sora's head.

'Thanks Kon...' said Ichigo. The mod-soul had been exceptionally quiet over the past week too. Ichigo now looked at him thoughtfully. 'Hey! You can go for a walk, if you'd like...' he offered. 'There is a more crowded beach near by... I'm sure there you'll find some bikini-clad girls to peek at...'

Kon sat down next to them with a theatrical sigh, looking glum.

'… not in the mood.'

'What's got into you?' Ichigo asked, concerned now, despite himself.

The lion plushy remained silent for a short time, than without any warning, he burst into tears.

'It's... it's all my fault! You trusted me!' he sobbed.

At first Ichigo didn't even understand what he was talking about. But then he remembered...

'You said it was my job to protect him!' whined Kon, his watery stare on Sora. 'But I didn't! If I hadn't been so weak, then poor Orihime-chan wouldn't have had to go through all that pain... If I... '

'Kon!' Ichigo interrupted him sternly. 'Stop blaming yourself! Because I'm sure I don't blame you! It was not your fault! If anything...'

'It was nobodies fault.' Isshin hastily stated. Both Ichigo and Kon looked at him.

'But I...' they said in union, but the next moment they were both thrown backwards by Isshin's fists colliding with there faces.

'Hey!' protested Kon angrily.

'Damn you old man!' Shouted Ichigo, getting to his feet.

'I said what I said! It was nobodies fault, so you two can wipe those ridiculous suffering faces off yourselves, or I'll just punch it off for you! Is that clear?'

Isshin turned away scowling, and Ichigo couldn't help smiling a little at his father's odd ways of trying to free him from self-accusation.

'Momma!'

The two man lifted there faces surprised. This was the first understandable word Sora ever spoke. And they saw that Orihime was indeed behind them, wearing a white summer-dress with a large hat, as a protection from the sun's rays. When she heard Sora calling her, she laughed, and started running towards them. She caught her son, and lifted him up, kissing him fiercely.

Her face was different from the way it had looked for a week, the way it had looked even last night... Her face was now totally happy, end even the bags were missing from under her eyes. The energy she was missing previously have returned to her. A miracle happened over night...

Ichigo's heart swelled with emotions...

'Orihime...' he whispered. He realized that a single teardrop ran down his cheek. He whipped it away hurriedly, least Isshin would see it... but the older man was busy mopping his own face, and the two now wore comically identical faces of disbelief.

'Ichigo!' Orihime turned to him, and embraced him, with one hand, the other still holding Sora. 'Wow! What a beautiful day! I feel like going in right now for a swim! But we better have breakfast first... I've made several different versions of omelets for each of us, but don't worry, yours is free of red bean paste...'

Ichigo was lost for words.

'… you seem to be better, Orihime-chan!' Isshin stated in a slightly shaking voice.

She flashed them a huge smile.

'Yes, I am, thank you!'

'Has something happened?'

She hesitated for a moment before answering.

'Well... yes... Is it that obvious?' she laughed. 'You see... I had a dream last night...'

'A DREAM?' Both Ichigo and Isshin jumped up, alarmed, thinking for a moment about the hollow, and her being in danger again...

She hastened to reassure them.

'No! It was nothing like that... It was a good dream.'

The man's eyes were still questioning her, so she finally decided to tell them everything.

'Somebody visited me in my dream... and... well... it was your mother... ' she said, looking at Ichigo shyly. 'We had a little talk... and she... She is such a wonderful person! I can't even describe it with words! Kind and warm, gentle and... and she's even more beautiful than on the pictures! '

Ichigo swallowed hard.

'… what did you talk about?' he asked in a small voice.

'Many things...' Orihime said mysteriously. 'Mostly you... and Sora... but it's not really what we talked about... You see... she... I...' Her eyes were round and shining as she struggled for words. She only had a few dim memories of her own mother... and nothing she had could come even close to the intense feeling of warmness, security and peace she had felt when she had been hugged by Masaki Kurosaki, as though by a mother... Even though it was just a dream, that hug had the love of a mother in it, and had the power to heal her...

In the end, words failed her. But it didn't matter. From the look in there eyes, the others understood her anyway... Ichigo closed his eyes briefly to offer a silent 'thank you', before wrapping his own arms securely around her.

'I love you!' he whispered in her ear. 'I'm just so glad you're back...'

…...

_Author's notes: Thank you so much for reading my story! I hope you like the ending! I struggled with it a bit, and a lot of things I wanted to fit in it originally were left out. For example I wanted to point out that Ichigo could have 'given in' to his hollow at any point in his history, just like Sawamura did, but he always remained strong, refusing to accept the 'easy' way, doing firmly what was right instead. _

_Only the epilogue left, I'll update with it shortly._

_Please review! Even if it's just a few words, it makes me happy!_


	15. Epilogue

_Hi! Here are the final scores of my guessing game:_

_**1th place** - 'himelove22': 7 points_

_**2****nd**** place** - 'reddeathx6': 2 points_

_**3****rd**** place** - 'kitsune kiyoko' and 'jammers flood': 1-1 points._

_Congratulations for everyone and thank you for guessing, I had fun with this game!_

_Dear 'himelove22', you were really fantastic, and I'll have your reward short story up by tomorrow. (I'll send you a PM once it's done.)_

Epilogue

/time skip: 5 years/

Ichigo was out again in the middle of the night, performing soul reaper duty. A hollow attacked the spirit of a young woman, who dwelt near a small fountain in a little square of Karakura town. The spirit screamed. Ichigo sprang down from the sky and pulled out Zangetsu from his back in one fluid motion as he fell.

Water sprayed everywhere as he landed inside the fountain gracefully. The hollow had only time to turn in his direction and roar madly before his blade came down hard on it's masked head. The monster's body shook and disappeared with a faint light.

Ichigo jumped out of the water and came next to the woman spirit. She still screamed.

'Don't worry! I won't hurt you!' he said to her. The screaming stopped, but the spirit's eyes were still wide with fear, and she continued to back away from him. Ichigo wished he'd thought about removing his trademark scowl from his face before addressing her...

Than he closed his eyes, feeling the spirit waves around him. He finally sighed.

'All right you two!' he shouted in the direction of the street corner. 'You can come out now!'

An other Ichigo popped his head out from behind the side of the building. As he came closer with an embarrassed look, an other head appeared over his shoulder. The little boy's clearly been hanging on his back.

'You should have know better than to bring him along, Kon!'

Sora jumped down from Kon's back.

'Don't be mad at him, Daddy, please! It was my idea! Oh, wow, that was so cool! You're the best!'

Ichigo couldn't help but smile at this. He's firstborn son's eyes glinted with excitement and with adoration for his father. Sora was almost 6 now. He wore one of his mother's hairpins made into a pendant for him around his neck on a chain. It was his mother's idea. When Sora began to walk and talk, he lost the ability to control his mother's powers, but learned them again, this time consciously by the time he was 4.

'Can I do the konso this time? Please! Can I ?' He was giving his father one of his biggest and guffyest smiles.

'Oh, why not!'

'Yay!'

The boy ran to the spirit, and grabbed her hand kindly. Of course she was not afraid of him...

'Hi, my name is Sora, and I will now help you pass on to the after life, so that you'll never have to be afraid again!'

Ichigo handed him the hilt of Zangetsu, but he didn't release it completely: his sword was way too heavy for a 6 year old to handle. Sora pressed the back of the hilt to the forehead of the woman spirit, and they watched as her spirit butterfly rose up to the sky with a pure blue light.

'You did that well...' his father complimented him. 'Now let's go home already! I've got a feeling that your mother will rip my head off for this...'

'Oh, no she won't!' said Sora, still smiling. 'After all it was she who woke me up... not intentionally, but I can always tell when she is worried. Even in my sleep.' His little face was quite serious now, and it was an adorable sight, even more so than his smile. 'Dad, it's your job to protect everyone in this town. Somebody has to protect you too!'

Ichigo didn't really know how he felt at hearing this... He just stared down at his son, then went to him, and picked him up into his arms.

'Well, our job here is done for tonight! And in any case, you're a growing boy, who needs his rest.'

Sora nested himself cozily inside his embrace, and halfway home he was already asleep. Ichigo watched him sleep from the corner of his eyes as he slowly walked.

_'I still don't know if it's possible to shatter fate with a sword... and if it is, the fight never ends. Fate just keeps coming back for you... I'll have to accept that... After all, you can't change who you are...'_


End file.
